Jeff Koons designs his first watch, a Hublot collaboration built on metaphysics

Hublot has named Jeff Koons as its newest collaborator and brand ambassador, with the American artist unveiling his reimagined take on a Hublot watch in New York in mid-September. It is Koons's first project with any watchmaker, and the finished design has not yet been shown publicly.

Koons described a long-running affinity with the brand rather than a cold pitch. "Hublot and I have always shared a fascination for the material sciences," he said in a statement, framing the watch as an extension of an interest he has pursued across his sculpture and painting practice for decades.

He went further on what he wants an object to do for a viewer, saying he always tries to "transcend an object, a material, into having the viewer be able to find more meaning in the finished work than just its individual parts." That line is the closest thing to a public brief the collaboration has offered so far.

How the collaboration came together

Hublot chief executive Julien Tornare invited Koons to the brand's base in Nyon, Switzerland, and personally walked him through the factory floor, according to an interview Tornare gave to WWD. Tornare explained how Hublot has partnered with contemporary artists since 2011, working previously with architects and painters on limited pieces.

Tornare said the brand deliberately withholds a tight brief when it works with an artist. "We don't want to limit them with too many rules and constraints," he said, adding that this open approach is what artists appreciate and what Hublot's own clients understand about the brand's philosophy.

What Koons designed has not been released, but Tornare confirmed the artist's interest in metaphysics, philosophy and the meaning of time will be visible in the finished piece. No case size, materials or price have been disclosed ahead of the New York unveiling.

Koons joins a roster of names Hublot has already worked with, including Shepard Fairey, Richard Orlinski, Daniel Arsham and Takashi Murakami. Those collaborations have skewed toward street art and pop sculpture, which makes Koons's metaphysical framing a departure for the brand's artist program.

What Hublot's last artist watch cost

Hublot's most recent artist collaboration, the Hublot MP-17 MECA-10 Arsham Splash Titanium Sapphire released in 2025, retailed at £57,000, or roughly $77,260. That watch combined sapphire crystal, titanium and rubber, materials Hublot has leaned on across its collections for over a decade.

Hublot's brand page describes a house built on fusing unconventional materials with traditional watchmaking, the same premise Tornare cited when he called the company a playground for artists. Pricing on past collaborations suggests the Koons piece will land at a comparable, appreciable premium over Hublot's standard collection.

We have covered Hublot's material experiments before, including how the brand baked a velvet texture into the rubber of its Big Bang Original, inside and out, a project that shared the same appetite for unusual materials now steering the Koons watch.

We also reported on Tornare's broader product philosophy, when the chief executive ruled out a Small Bang model and detailed a 5+5 year warranty policy for the brand's watches. That interview showed a company willing to depart from expectation, a pattern this collaboration continues.

Koons is known outside watchmaking for sculpture and painting that treats mass-produced imagery and materials as fine art subjects, a practice that has made him one of the most recognized living artists working today. His entry into watch design extends that practice into a wearable object for the first time.

The metaphysics and philosophy framing Tornare described echoes themes Koons has pursued for decades: finding meaning in an object beyond its physical components. Applying that idea to a mechanical watch, an object already built around measuring time, gives the collaboration a conceptual hook distinct from Hublot's past artist projects.

Readers curious how a case shape or a dial's materials typically carry that kind of meaning can look to our guide on watch anatomy, which breaks down the parts of a watch that a collaboration like this one is likely to reinterpret.

No pricing, production numbers or specifications have been confirmed for the Koons watch, and Hublot has not said whether it will be a limited edition in the way the Arsham piece was. Those details are expected to surface alongside the New York unveiling in mid-September.

Until then, the collaboration remains defined by two statements from its designer and one from Hublot's chief executive, a factory tour in Nyon, and a watchmaker's history of letting artists work without a script.