Rubber usually enters a watch through the strap, a gasket or a protective bumper. Hublot's Big Bang Original Soft Touch asks what happens when it takes over almost everything the hand encounters. The brand has overmoulded a textured rubber compound onto titanium across the case, bezel, dial and strap, producing two 43 mm chronographs in All Black and All Red.
That makes this less a colour launch than an ownership experiment. The important question is not whether rubber can look luxurious. It is whether a watch known for hard edges and visual mass feels meaningfully different when its architecture is wrapped in a softer, warmer material.
Why A Collector Should Care
Most material stories are visible before they are felt. Soft Touch reverses that order. Its value depends on touch, grip, heat transfer and how the surfaces age, so photographs can explain the construction but cannot settle the buying decision.
Rubber Is The Structure You Notice
Hublot says the texture is intrinsic to the rubber compound rather than a coating or surface treatment. The compound is moulded over a titanium base, preserving the case geometry while changing the surface presented to the wrist and fingers. That distinction matters. A coating decorates an existing object; an overmoulded layer becomes part of how the object is handled.
The approach also pushes Hublot's Art of Fusion idea into a more practical register. Titanium supplies the rigid foundation. Rubber supplies grip, reduced cold-to-the-touch sensation and visual continuity from case to strap. The result still looks unmistakably like a Big Bang, but the usual contrast between hard case and flexible strap largely disappears.
All Black Or All Red?
The two versions make different arguments with the same construction. All Black recalls Hublot's 2006 monochrome concept, using low contrast to turn the case into a single dark volume. The visible mechanics and polished details have to work harder against that background. All Red refers to the brand's 2018 red-ceramic chapter, but rubber changes the effect: the colour is saturated without the hard shine associated with ceramic.
For buyers, All Red is the more useful demonstration piece because it reveals the stepped bezel, pushers and case flanks clearly. All Black is the subtler object, though subtle remains relative on a 43 mm openworked chronograph. Neither choice shrinks the watch. Softness may make the object friendlier to touch, but it does not erase the diameter or the broad visual footprint.
The Familiar Unico Underneath
Both watches use Hublot's HUB1280 Unico manufacture movement, a self-winding flyback chronograph with a column wheel and approximately 72 hours of power reserve. Water resistance is rated to 100 metres, and the One Click system allows the rubber strap to be changed without tools.
Those specifications keep the experiment grounded. This is not a delicate concept piece that happens to wear rubber. It retains the everyday capability expected from a modern Big Bang, while asking owners to accept a less familiar exterior. The All Red model carries reference 431.RXR.2770.RX.VEL and is listed by Hublot in the United States at USD 24,900. Availability is through selected points of sale and online, depending on market.
What Photographs Cannot Answer
A tactile case creates its own long-term questions. How easily does the textured surface collect lint? Do the edges become polished with wear? How does the red compound respond to denim, sunscreen or repeated strap changes? Hublot's announcement does not answer those ownership questions, and it would be premature to claim durability from launch images alone.
The brand's five-year warranty can be extended by another five years under its warranty programme, which offers some reassurance around the watch as a product. It does not replace the need to inspect the surface in person. Collectors should handle the pushers, bezel and case sides under ordinary light, then compare the feel with a conventional ceramic or titanium Big Bang.
A Watch You Have To Handle Before Judging
Soft Touch succeeds as an idea because the material is not confined to a coloured strap. It changes the contact surface of the whole watch while leaving the Big Bang silhouette and Unico mechanics intact. Whether that is worth the price cannot be decided from a specification table. If the rubber makes 43 mm of Big Bang feel less severe and more wearable, the material has done real design work. If it only photographs differently, it remains an interesting finish. This is one launch where the collector's hand should have the final word.
Loading comments...