A few years ago, I was walking along the beachfront in Los Angeles and ended up at Pacific Park on Santa Monica Pier. It had all the usual funfair stuff: rollercoasters, candy floss, and those games that look really easy… up until you hand over your hard-earned cash.
At one stall, you were given a bunch of plastic hoops and asked to throw them over some bottle tops. Hanging behind it was a wall of prizes: a giant pink octopus, a knock-off Pikachu, and some brightly coloured watches so shiny that they looked like they’d only just come out of the mould. I wanted the Pikachu. I did not win the Pikachu. I got nothing, actually, apart from the realisation that ring toss wasn’t my calling.
Hublot’s new Balloon Dog watches with Jeff Koons kinda remind me of those watches – and before anyone tries to cancel me, I mean that as a compliment. They’re bright, a little silly, and look like they should come with a huge stuffed toy tucked under the other arm. They are proper fun.
Hublot isn’t a watch brand that inspires many neutral opinions. It describes itself as a disruptor, while its critics have come up with plenty of less flattering words over the years. The watches are often big and expensive and not particularly interested in slipping quietly beneath a cuff. But Hublot has never really asked to be taken quietly, and the new Classic Fusion Balloon Dog by Jeff Koons might be one of the best examples of why that can be a good thing.
There are three versions: blue, red, and silver. Each looks like somebody has attached a pump to a regular Classic Fusion and kept going until the whole thing swelled right up. Walid Benla, founder of Time-Telling Magazine, says the cases look “bubbly” enough to suit Koons, with the bezels and lugs of the anodised aluminium versions resembling something “taken from a beach balloon.” His immediate reaction to the little rubber dog tail poking out at 10:30 was even simpler: “Cute.”
“I like it because a Jeff Koons collab deserves to be expressive and fun,” he says. “Everything about the Classic Fusion Balloon Dog gives off a ’90s plasticky vibe that makes perfect sense for the Jeff Koons name.”
That plasticky quality is clearly intentional here. Koons’ OG Balloon Dog sculptures took something cheap, temporary, and usually twisted together at kids’ parties, then recreated it in massive, mirror-polished stainless steel. Hublot has now shrunk that idea down and strapped it to a wrist, but it hasn’t taken the obvious route. “Lots of artist collaborations amount to putting a famous image on a dial,” says watch collector Bill Adler. “The easy watch to make would have simply stamped a picture of Koons’ famous sculpture on the dial, but this is a creative work in its own right.”
Almost every visible part has been reworked, too. The case is rounder and softer. The sapphire crystal rises over a puffy pie-pan dial, while the hour markers, hands, bezel, screws, and even the points where the strap meets the case have all been inflated. The crown looks like the valve used to inflate a balloon, the seconds hand carries a tiny Balloon Dog counterweight, and that rubber tail sticks proudly out of the side.
