News 
The LVMH group organised its annual Journées particulières on October 13th and 14th. Launched in 2011, this event highlights the diversity of the skills and expertise cultivated within the group’s various Maisons.
For the third year running, Hublot held an open day, giving access to the two buildings of its manufacturing site in Nyon. Around 460 visitors first enjoyed the chance to view the movement and case production and machining workshops, as well as those respectively dedicated to decoration and gemsetting. The tour continued with the R&D department – generally known as Hublot Exploration – followed by the foundry producing Magic Gold, the scratchproof 18K gold patented by Hublot and the EPFL, as well as the production of coloured ceramics in which Hublot has played a pioneering role.
Guests then walked through the assembly workshops, including the one devoted to the in-house Unico calibre. The visit ended in the extremely silent area dedicated to assembling Grand Complication models, where participants were thrilled to witness a demonstration of a minute repeater. Timepieces were on show throughout in order to introduce the public to the entire range of Hublot products.
People wishing to enjoy a full immersion into the watchmaking world had an opportunity to try their hand at dismantling and reassembling the case of the iconic Big Bang during the “Watch Academy” sessions.
Matthias Buttet, Director of the Hublot Exploration division, gave a fascinating talk explaining the activities of this company sector which is involved in work on new movements, as well as on innovative materials. Following the development of a new ultra-light and ultra-resistant material, Hublot has recently become official partner of the European Space Agency. In parallel with developing four new calibres that will be released over the next seven years, the Hublot Exploration engineers are continuing to work intensely on the archaeological Antikythera project. By way of reminder, in 2012 the brand issued a four-piece series reproducing the complicated mechanism of the Antikythera machine, the first ancient analogue calculator serving to compute astronomical positions, discovered in a shipwreck near the Greek island from which its name is derived. This archaeological site is still being explored and the in-house engineers have developed drones destined to look for other vestiges of this shipwreck dating from 250BC.
The Journées particulières LVMH enabled around 180,000 visitors to explore the 56 participating Maisons around the world.
October 25, 2018