“It’s interesting seeing how much failure there is in the process,” said the American artist Daniel Arsham of his visits to the Hublot factory.
Arsham, who is known for transforming contemporary objects into fictionalised ancient artefacts, was speaking in Singapore in October 2025 at a press conference to introduce his latest timepiece. A Hublot ambassador, he has followed up from last year’s water droplet pocket watch to introduce his first wristwatch with the Swiss brand: the MP-17 Meca-10 Arsham Splash Titanium Sapphire.
This new wristwatch is a continuation of the artist’s water theme with Hublot. Mounted on titanium, a frosted sapphire bezel frames a clear opening shaped like a splash of water. It looks as if an ancient glacial fragment had been melted through, the centre turning from frosty ice to clear, limpid water to reveal the timepiece’s mechanical workings.
“Hublot’s superpower is to make materials do things they’re not supposed to,” says Daniel Arsham of his collaboration with the watchmaker.
What’s remarkable is the organic shape of the sapphire, which is the fruit of two years’ work cutting, sculpting and cajoling this mineral to mimic water—and indeed, as Arsham mentioned, failures.
The nature of the brand-artist relationship is interesting. With Hublot, Arsham noted a welcome “willingness to fail and experiment in a partner”. Hublot CEO Julien Tornare was simpatico. “Artists need a playground,” he explained of the brand’s approach to working with creatives beyond its horological ken. “And we,” Tornare added, “need to dare to break our own codes.”
MP-17 Meca-10 Arsham Splash Titanium Sapphire, limited to 99 pieces, available at The Hour Glass.
The January/February 2026 ‘Art’ issue of Vogue Singapore is available online and on newsstands.
