Takashi Murakami just went from watch collaborator to watch brand owner. The Japanese contemporary artist, whose smiling flowers and skull motifs have been plastered across Hublot dials, gallery walls, and Louis Vuitton bags for years, has launched Time Objects, his own independent watch label. The debut collection is called Skull Flowers, and it does not play it safe.
The collection comprises five skull-shaped watches. Each one features rotating flower eyes, a jumping hours display, and a flying tourbillon. That's not a mood board. That's a finished product. If you've followed Murakami's Hublot work and thought "I want more of that, but weirder," this is your answer.
This launch matters because it's not just another artist slapping their signature on a licensed dial. Murakami is building an actual brand around his aesthetic. Time Objects is his vehicle for exploring what he calls unconventional timekeeping, and the Skull Flowers pieces are the opening statement.
What's Actually in These Watches
The case itself is shaped like a skull. That's the foundation everything else is built on. The eyes of the skull are where the flowers sit, and those flowers rotate, which means the watch is literally moving and shifting as you look at it. It's kinetic art you strap to your wrist.
The time display uses jumping hours, so the hour numerals snap forward in an instant rather than creeping along a dial. Pair that with a flying tourbillon and you have genuine high watchmaking complications underneath all the visual noise. This isn't a quartz novelty with a funny case. The movement work is real.
Most artist watch collabs front-load the visuals and phone in the movement. Time Objects is doing the opposite of that, stacking serious complications inside a case that already has plenty to say on the outside. That combination is rare.
Who Is This For
Let's be honest: this is not for someone who wants a tool watch or a dress watch. This is for a specific kind of collector. Here's who actually fits:
- Existing Murakami fans who want wearable work from his universe, not just prints or figures
- Collectors who already buy independent watchmaking and want something with cultural weight beyond the horological world
- People who bought the Hublot Murakami pieces and want to go deeper
- Anyone who treats watches as objects of art rather than purely functional instruments
- Fashion and luxury crossover buyers who are comfortable spending at the high end of the market
If you need a watch that blends into a business meeting, keep walking. If you want something people stop you on the street about, this is a serious candidate.
How It Compares to the Hublot Collaborations
Murakami's work with Hublot was high profile and genuinely interesting. Those pieces brought his flowers and skulls into the Swiss watchmaking context, but Hublot's design language always stayed in the frame. The Big Bang case, the rubber straps, the brand's own visual identity, it all filtered the Murakami aesthetic.
Time Objects removes that filter. The skull case isn't a modified Big Bang. The rotating flower eyes aren't adapted from an existing complication. This is Murakami designing from a blank page, which is a fundamentally different thing. The Hublot collabs were a collaboration. This is an authorship.
The flying tourbillon also pushes the technical ambition past what most artist-driven brands bother with. You could argue Murakami is trying to be taken seriously in both worlds simultaneously, art and horology, rather than just borrowing credibility from one to sell product in the other.
Five Variants, One Vision
The Skull Flowers collection comes in five references. Each one carries the same core architecture, the skull case, the rotating eyes, the jumping hours, the tourbillon, but Murakami's work has always been about color and variation. Five versions give the collection range without diluting the concept. It's the same move he uses across his other work, one motif, many expressions.
Specific pricing and reference numbers haven't been fully detailed across sources, but given the complication level and the positioning of the brand, expect figures in line with high-end independent watchmaking. This is not entry-level artist merchandise.
Time Objects is a genuine swing. Murakami isn't testing the waters here with a simple limited edition. He's starting a brand, with a name, a collection, and a clear point of view. Whether it builds into something with staying power or stays a highly collectible debut moment depends on what comes next. But as opening statements go, Skull Flowers is hard to ignore.
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