TIME IN FORMATION - BIG BANG SOLDIER ALL BLACK: THE TOY SOLDIER, CAST IN BLACK CERAMIC

9th November 2026, London – Hublot and Soldier, two forces built on innovation and creativity, unveil the Big Bang Soldier All Black. Two years in the making and limited to 50 pieces, it is the first timepiece designed by the Lagos-born, London-based artist Leonard Iheagwam, also known as Soldier. Rendered entirely in black ceramic and black-plated titanium, the 42mm chronograph elevates the toy soldier from playful figurine to potent symbol.

Since 2011, Hublot has proudly collaborated creatively with artists who reshape culture rather than illustrate it. Today the Swiss watchmaker unveils its latest watch made in partnership with visual artist, designer and skateboarder Soldier. Born in Lagos and entirely self-taught, Soldier left home at sixteen to pursue art and skateboarding, co-founded the Lagos collective Motherlan, and has since exhibited his works in global institutions including London’s Saatchi Gallery. His moniker was born out of defiance: in Nigeria, civilians are legally restricted from wearing military camouflage. He took the pattern anyway, and made it his own.

A passion for innovation is shared by Hublot and Soldier. Hublot was founded in 1980 on a single challenge to convention, a gold case on a rubber strap, and has spent four decades since taking materials to new and unexpected heights. Soldier does the same with symbols. A universally recognisable form, moulded by the million and handed to children, the toy soldier reduces and commodifies the enormity of conflict to something small, familiar and almost playful. By placing that motif on a functional object worn on the wrist, Soldier interrogates how symbols through everyday life, and whether those symbols can be transformed. Hublot explores this tension further with its mastery of materials. Executed entirely in materials mastered by the Swiss maison; microblasted and polished black ceramic, black-plated titanium and sapphire, the Big Bang Soldier All Black gives the toy soldier – once moulded in plastic – the one thing the original never had: permanence, engineered to the tolerances of fine watchmaking.

“Hublot managed to create a legacy while remaining contemporary. Its history is built around fusion and contrast, bringing materials and ideas together that traditionally weren’t supposed to coexist, and that idea of fusion feels very relevant to my own practice. You don’t want to simply decorate something that already has its own language and history. You want to understand it, respect what already exists, and then find a way of introducing another story into it. With this watch, I explore what happens when symbols of power are moved somewhere they don’t traditionally belong,” stated Soldier.

“What Soldier has done with the Big Bang is not decoration; it is a reinterpretation of our All Black philosophy through his own language. Our in-house Unico chronograph, ceramic mastered in Nyon, and an artist with something urgent to express: this is the Art of Fusion at its most contemporary,” stated Julien Tornare, CEO of Hublot.

THE BIG BANG: BLACK ON BLACK

Expressed through its signature All Black concept first introduced in 2006, every element of the 42mm Big Bang Soldier All Black is worked in a single colour and separated only by texture. The layered construction of the Big Bang, the case Hublot introduced in 2005 and has never stopped reinventing, becomes the canvas on which the artist’s motifs are set. The case and bezel are executed in microblasted and polished black ceramic, a material Hublot has spent two decades mastering, where the interplay of matte and gloss on an identical black creates a tonal design. The case-back also features the co-ordinates of the Hublot London boutique, where the collaboration first began.

The sapphire dial reveals the architecture of the Unico Manufacture movement, with black-plated satined and microblasted hands reading across it. Beating inside is the HUB1280 Unico, Hublot’s inhouse self-winding chronograph calibre comprising of 354 components and boasting 72 hours of power reserve. Conceived, developed and assembled at the Manufacture in Nyon, it is the mechanical guarantee behind the artistic gesture.

Colour enters only at the strap, and only where Leo intended it. The watch is delivered on a black fabric strap accompanied by two additional rubber straps lined in red and in green. In a book Soldier produced in 2024, gathering paintings, sculptures and conversations from 2018 to the present, red stood for the present and green for the past. On the wrist, the two straps carry that same chronology, one colour for where he is and one for where he came from, against a case that gives nothing away.

From its black-on-black ceramic architecture to its Manufacture chronograph movement, the Big Bang Soldier All Black expresses the innovation, mastery and boldness that define Hublot. That confidence is reflected in Hublot’s 5+5 warranty programme, extending coverage to up to ten years; a commitment rooted in the brand’s conviction in every Manufacture-made watch and in the expertise of the teams behind it. Limited to 50 pieces, the Big Bang Soldier All Black is available at selected Hublot boutiques and points of sale and online at hublot.com.