Tick, tick… boom! When Samuel Ross went to Hublot – FINANCIAL TIMES
Thu 19 May
When it comes to defining his occupation, Samuel Ross is a fast-moving target. Is he an artist? An industrial designer? A sculptor, fashion designer, philanthropist?
The answer, to all, is yes. And, with the launch of his first Big Bang Tourbillon for Hublot, he can now add watch designer to that list. Executed in satin-finished titanium, paired with cochineal-coloured rubber, and visually defined by a honeycomb pattern of perforations, it recalls an elaborately designed trainer – which makes sense, given that Ross is a footwear designer too, having collaborated with Nike, Converse and others.
Born in Brixton, 30-year-old Ross studied graphic design and illustration at De Montfort University in Leicester before working as a product designer for Wilkinson and Beko Kettles. At 21, he was “discovered” on Instagram by the polymath Virgil Abloh, who took him on as an intern and then design assistant, where he worked on projects for Yeezy, Abloh’s own label Off-White, Hood By Air and Stüssy. In 2014, he launched his own luxury brand A-Cold-Wall*, through which he explores the various codes of the British class system – creating collections that contrast sports‑ and workwear with tailoring.
Ross remained close to Abloh, last speaking to the late Louis Vuitton menswear designer the day before he died in November 2021. Like his quondam mentor, Ross is the founder of a successful brand, a prolific collaborator, industrious, interdisciplinary and one of only a handful of black designers working in the fashion industry.
Ross’s litmus test for a project is that it needs to have what he calls “three points of discovery”, a trinity of characteristics that sets it apart from what already exists. With the watch – the first he’s ever designed – “it is the ergonomic rubber band; the perforated hexagonal patterning that filters throughout the entire product; and, if you hold this watch up to the light, you can see directly through it but you also get this beautiful shadow and depth, because of internal perforations throughout the watch. Those are the real focal points,” says Ross. “We totally redeveloped the look and feel of what really belongs to the Hublot portfolio.”