Swiss watch maison Hublot began its partnership with Dominican Republic-based premium cigar icon Arturo Fuente y Cia. in 2012, and the collaboration has yielded three limited-edition models all celebrating, in their own distinctive manner, the synergy between the arts of watchmaking and cigarmaking. The fourth made its celebrated debut this week, at a gala event in the Dominican Republic, and may prove to be the most coveted edition yet: the Big Bang Unico Arturo Fuente Ceramic.

Not only is the watch, which is limited to 100 pieces, the first in the cigar-inspired series to feature a laser-engraved ceramic case; it is also the first model created as a direct tribute to Carlos Fuente, Sr., son of founder and namesake Arturo Fuente and father to current company leader Carlos “Carlito” Fuente, Jr. Fuente, Sr., who passed away in 2016, took the reins of the Tampa-based family cigar business in 1956 and after a series of trials and tribulations in the wake of the Cuban embargo, moved the company to its current home in the Dominican Republic in 1980, where it has thrived under the leadership of Carlito Fuente, who worked with his father before succeeding him as president.
Developed in a close collaboration between Hublot’s watch design team and Fuente family designer Manny Iriarte, The Big Bang Unico Arturo Fuente Ceramic features a host of details, some more subtle than others, designed to pay tribute to the patriarch of the “first family o...