I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a sucker for color. What do I mean exactly? I am implying that taking something old and rendering it in a new color alone can really capture my attention. That’s half of what Hublot did with the Big Bang UNICO Red Magic reference 411.CF.8513.RX watch – by taking the Big bang UNICO watch and producing it in the color red. The other and more interesting technical side of the story is that they made a red watch using red-colored ceramic. This is something which hasn’t been done before.

In my opinion ceramic is the most important modern material for watchmaking in tandem with silicon. I strongly believe that ceramic and silicon will increasingly have important roles in entry-level to high-end horology. A discussion of ceramic materials is outside the scope of this conversation, but I will remind you again why we get so excited about ceramic. Ceramic is a non-metallic (even though some forms of it mix in metal) material which is formed, baked to harden, and then polished. Colored ceramic is a process formed during the production of the material itself. Pigment must be mixed in to common ceramic materials such as zirconium oxide (aka zirconia) which is then baked into the final, hard material. Normal ceramic baking processes burn away most pigment colors leaving the final material blotchy and unattractive. For that reason zirconia is mostly produced in black or white, as well as an assortment of mostly dark colors.

Bright colored ceramics have for a long time been a sort of holy grail for ceramic makers. The “Reg Magic” ceramic produced in-house by Hublot is the realization of one such grail color. I discuss a bit more about how Hublot achieved the red color in this ceramic material when debuting the Hublot Big Bang UNICO Red Magic watch on a Blog of Watch here. Why ceramic if the main point is to get a red watch? The reality is that there aren’t other options. Colors in watch case materials must be considered as a function of available durable materials. If you want red, you are limited to a few options that included painting or plastic originally. If you wanted a red watch that was high-end (not plastic), then you needed to coat or paint a material. This led to the possibility of the color wearing off, which isn’t something particularly desirable in a high-end product.

The Red Magic ceramic material was enough for us to put the Hublot Big Bang UNICO Red Magic watch on the aBlogtoWatch list of the Top 10 Watches Of Baselworld 2018. It goes without saying that I’m a big fan – even if the underlying watch is not new.