Description

Hublot’s collaboration with Depeche Mode depicts a skull hourglass on the dial.
The black sand within the hourglass moves with your wrist, as it’s made from ceramic spheres. Depeche Mode are one of the most quintessential dark and moody bands even when their style ventured into the bright and poppy, but their 2023 album Memento Mori witnessed another dive into the morbid. The Hublot Spirit of Big Bang Depeche Mode follows them down in despair, dressed all in black.

Hublot and Depeche Mode have collaborated before with a few Big Bang models, but those watch captured more of the English band’s rebellious and industrial messages. This Spirit of Big Bang really embraces the meaning of Memento Mori, or the art of remembering death. The dial explores multiple shades of black across its deep, polished background and a relief of a skull inside an hourglass, serving of the reminder that our time will someday run out. There’s even black sand made from tiny ceramic spheres which drifts around sections of the skull, adding to the dynamics of the dial. Although black-on-black-on-black isn’t the most legible of combinations, the way the light catches the hands do make them visible enough to read the time.

The Spirit of Big Bang Depeche Mode has an aggressive hobnail bezel, echoing the belts and other accessories you can see on the average goth club attendee. They’re also used as the hour markers, and their sharp, pyramid shape helps them catch light and give off a subtle sheen, if not a dull sparkle. The case itself is made from black ceramic, ensuring that no coating can ever wear off, and it will live on into black eternity. This model measures 42mm across, with a lug-to-lug distance of 52mm. It comes with a black rubber strap echoing the hobnail motif, and a recycled fabric strap.