Jeff Koons has spent four decades making steel look weightless; now he has done it on the wrist. The Classic Fusion Balloon Dog by Jeff Koons, unveiled this week by Hublot, translates the artist’s most famous sculpture into a 42mm watch that appears, improbably, to have been inflated rather than machined.
Every surface swells: a domed sapphire crystal over a convex dial, puffed Super-LumiNova indexes and hands, a rubber-moulded crown, even a flexible “balloon tail” curling from the case at 10:30 — the knot of the balloon, rendered in miniature. The padded metallic leather strap continues the illusion, and inside, a custom tungsten oscillating weight is shaped with the same soft volumes.
“Every component was reimagined, reshaped and refined to create the illusion of inflation while preserving fine watchmaking integrity,” says Hublot CEO Julien Tornare. Three editions of 200 pieces each — mirror-polished steel, red anodised aluminium and blue anodised aluminium — mirror the chromatic candy of Koons’ Celebration series, each assembled in Nyon and covered by Hublot’s extended warranty of up to ten years.
Hublot has always argued that fusion is its founding idea; here the fusion is between contemporary art’s most bankable icon and serial watchmaking, and the result will divide dinner tables from Geneva to Alserkal Avenue. Which is, of course, precisely what a Koons is for.
