Hublot Classic Fusion Gold Crystal

The Research and Development Department at the Hublot manufacture heats gold in the purest form possible—24 carats—to melting point, which creates emanations of gold that we could compare to steam carrying atoms of gold. These particles rise through this emanation, then set in a crystalline form when they reach the cold surface. They agglomerate there as crystals with completely random shapes that are never the same twice.
The master dial maker then delicately picks up the crystals to lay them on the dial, cluster by cluster. Only 20% of these crystals are kept. Once they have been sorted, they are very delicately placed by hand on a black dial then imprisoned in a fine transparent lacquer that took years to develop. This is a complex operation as it must be carried out in a vacuum to avoid any air bubbles appearing. The process is repeated again and again as twenty different layers of lacquer must be applied to completely hold the crystals. Then this plate just needs to be polished to make the lacquer invisible and give a perfectly flat surface.