Artist Andy Warhol spotted wearing a Hublot

Andy Warhol was notoriously private about his watch collection despite owning hundreds of timepieces, so photographs of him actually wearing one are vanishingly rare. This image — unearthed by the Italian Watch Spotters team — shows the Factory's founder with a distinctly unusual piece on his wrist: a Hublot MDM Genève in the two-tone steel and yellow gold configuration, reference 1521.100.2, worn with the dial inscription facing inward toward his body, a characteristically Warholian inversion of convention.

The Hublot reference 1521.100.2 belongs to the first generation of watches produced by Carlo Crocco's brand after its landmark 1980 debut at Basel. That debut model — a polished steel case married to a natural rubber strap — was genuinely revolutionary at a time when the Swiss industry considered rubber beneath consideration. The "MDM Genève" text printed on the dial references Marie-Danielle Montres, the Geneva retail operation that served as an early distribution partner for the young brand. This inscription was phased out as Hublot's own identity consolidated through the mid-1980s, making dial-signed examples a reliable early-production indicator. The 1521 family featured an integrated bracelet option alongside the signature rubber strap, a yellow gold bezel ring anchoring the case's bi-metal aesthetic, and a reliable ETA-sourced automatic movement — functional, uncontroversial mechanics in service of a radical design statement.

For collectors, the MDM Genève dial variants occupy a specific and underappreciated niche. They predate the brand's global expansion and carry a documentary weight that later references lack. Two-tone examples in yellow gold and steel with original signed dials in honest condition are genuinely scarce on the secondary market, particularly with supporting documentation.

Warhol's relationship with time and its instruments was well documented — he reportedly kept watches in drawers by the score, treating them as objects rather than tools. Seeing him wear this particular Hublot, and wear it reversed, reads less like accident and more like statement. The man who silkscreened Campbell's soup cans knew exactly what he was doing with a Swiss watch on the wrong way round.

On the grey market, clean early Hublot MDM Genève two-tone references trade modestly relative to their historical significance, typically in the low thousands, though pristine examples with provenance — and this one now carries considerable provenance — command meaningful premiums.