In the past a few years, Hublot has released a limited edition of their hand-wound Meca-10 line which has been made with input from Fairey. And it came to the market in conjunction with their statement of artist Shepard Fairey as a new brand ambassador. The latest in Hublot’s series of art-themed replica watches, who founded OBEY clothing, seems a natural fit for the brand’s focus on avant-garde, disruptive and controversial artists.   
Outside of perhaps the skeletonized dial, which is absolutely not unique to this Hublot design, these Shepard Fairey editions are featured by the rather detailed application of a tribal floral pattern in the Texalium upper element of the watch’s 45mm case. Texalium, for those who don’t cancel the Big Bang Unico Italia Independent, is specialized aluminum-coated carbon fiber and it allows for the application of a wide variety of colors and the formation of completely customized imagery within the material. This is basically ideal for a watch that is encouraged by the work of a visual artist and the Big Bang Meca-10 Shepard Fairey can be had in either blue or grey with additional red accents.
With a restriction of 100 pieces in two different colors, the replica Hublot Big Bang Meca-10 Shepard Fairey LE is a predictably bold and colorful expression of Hublot’s recognizable shape, with a patterned Texalium and carbon fiber case, a funky power reserve indicator, and Fairey’s own Star Gear logo on the dial.
However, this Hublot has the brand’s “one click” strap changing system, which allows for simple and tool-less strap changes. As provided here, both versions come on a rubber and calf leather strap with an embossed design from the artist himself. Both versions have Fairey’s star logo on the dial at three and are powered by the fake Hublot’s hand-wound HUB 1201 movement. With a 10 day power reserve, this movement has time, sub seconds, and a distinctive cog wheel power reserve display at six o’clock that uses a framed red aperture to show the remaining reserve.
Whatever, I can understand the appeal for 200 well-heeled Fairey devotees and collectors while not a model that fits my tastes,. Not unlike past examples from Hublot’s “Hublot Loves Art” series, these fake models act as an extension of the appeal of the artist themselves, introducing a highly niche Hublot to an engaged audience that can be expected to understand both the artist’s greater appeal and the nature of collecting within that specific space.

In order to get new inspiration for a watch collection, Bell & Ross designers have turned to the skies for the latest challenge after designing both a race car and a motorcycle in concept, but this time the goal is to design an aircraft capable of actually competing in the Reno Air Races in record-breaking style. To be honest, it’s still an extremely cool one, now the new style Bell & Ross BR V2-94 Racing Bird Chronograph has appeared, of course its sibling three-hand BR V1-92 Racing Bird is well known.  
One of the most thing i like about Bell & Ross is that the brand seems to make no effort to hide behind the fact that its designers, not its heritage or its strongest asset with some famous ambassador or military group. And when the designers design, and the watchmakers make watches, they are just do what they are good at, fake watch fans win. The Racing Bird is a wonderful example of this. In fact, there is no different with the V2-94 Bellytanker or the V2-94 Garde-Côtes models from previous years in mechanical design, but that’s fine. What we’re essentially looking at here, is a palette swap, albeit an extremely effective one inspired by an actual working propeller-powered aircraft that Bell & Ross designed.
As suggested, the V2-94 Racing Bird is regarded as a successful ‘vintage’ line of Bell & Ross’ for some sense. However, there’s little about Bell & Ross that could even be considered ‘vintage’ strictly since the brand is still a child of the nineties. But that hasn’t stopped its designers getting inspiration from classic sports replica watches for this collection, with hallmarks like conservative 41mm case dimensions, domed sapphire glass lenses, screw-down crown & pushers, and 100m of water resistance. Despite sharing all those characteristics, as well as the same case and movement with both the Bellytanker and Garde Côtes, the Racing Bird is the first style in the series that feels like a truly new watch, really cool!
I much prefer the Racing Bird chronograph rather than its three-handed counterpart, whose dial feels more than a bit empty and lacking in the character found all over the chronograph variant. Here, the V2-94 feels sporty and fresh, with its milky white dial designed to evoke the fiberglass shell of the plane, contrasted by quick strokes of orange, and a deep blue anodized tachymeter scale and blue dial accents, just like on the Racing Bird’s hull and tail.
Different with the single-seat Racing Bird aircraft which is powered by a V12 Rolls Royce Falcon engine, the V2-94 uses the humble BR-Cal. 301, which is essentially a modified Sellita SW300-1, including an automatic chronograph movement with a 30-minute counter at 9:00, a center-mounted chronograph seconds hand which nicely accented by an orange Racing Bird silhouette counterweight, and a running seconds counter at 3:00. What’s more, the watch’s most divisive feature, an altimeter-inspired date aperture camouflaged just inside the 3:00 register. It’s actually a pretty clever integration, which is easy to get missed at first glance as the numbers look like that they could be part of the counter itself. But then you might notice they’re not concentric with the rest of the register’s circular shape, at which point, if this bothers you, you’re likely to un-see it as long as the Racing Bird is on your wrist.
As for modern chronographs, comfort is rare for the game, but Bell & Ross has done a wonderful job keeping the proportions of the V2-94 extremely wearable in both height and overall length. Factly, it doesn’t feel too far off in size and wrist presence from the Omega Speedmaster replica watch which is one of the most markedly wearable and iconic chronographs of our time.
Whether or not the color of the Racing Bird is to your taste, it does indeed feel fast and fresh like summer, for those who are looking for something a little more classical, the standard V2-94 models maybe your good choose. Please don’t miss it.