For Cyril Phan, the French graffiti artist known professionally as Kongo, a recent project posed a less predictable obstacle than, say, staying dry while painting on the side of a building in the rain.
Instead, he decorated the delicate parts of a stainless-steel tourbillon for the Swiss watch brand Richard Mille; the watch, which became available in June, is US$800,000 ($1,070,000).
"It was a fantastic technical challenge, because we sometimes work with elements that are a tenth or a hundredth of a millimeter," said Mille, the brand's founder. "Our objective was to produce the precision of painting in a very, very small scale." The company first spent six months creating a special airbrush that would control the distribution of minute amounts of brightly hued paint.
Street art sensibility
The project might seem unlikely, considering the sensibility of street art: edgy, youthful and more immediately suggestive of trendy bohemian surroundings than heritage Swiss craftsmanship. But other brands are working with artists whose usual medium is graffiti or even tattoos in an effort to expand their reach to a younger generation with sensibilities very different from those of its elders.
This month, the Big Bang Sang Bleu watch by Hublot reaches stores, designed in collaboration with Maxime Buchi, a London tattoo artist whose clients have included Kanye West. At slightly less than $19,000, the timepiece is available in a limited edition of 200. To help promote its release, Buchi will set up a temporary tattoo studio next month in Miami, timed to coincide with Art Basel Miami Beach.
And earlier this year, Romain Jerome introduced a timepiece with hands designed to resemble tattoo needles and straps featuring a flourish design by French tattoo artist Xoil, for $24,500.
Thinking ink
The trend is resonating at lower prices and in other ways. Next month, Shinola, whose watches are $475 to $1,500, is to open a boutique in downtown Los Angeles where customers can also get tattoos. It will be overseen by Scott Campbell, a tattoo artist whose work adorns the skin of high-profile figures including the designer Marc Jacobs.
The British brand Mr Jones Watches is introducing two styles with a design inspired by 1980s-era graffiti, each priced at about $1,250. And the designer Philipp Plein's recent collaboration with Filfury – the British artist Phil Robson, who is known for creating artwork using images of sneakers – included a chunky chronograph priced at a little more than $700.
These partnerships target, at least in part, the coveted market of millennials, many of whom might be more inclined to buy a smartwatch or simply check the time on the phone.
Art of the 21st century
"Part of the future is the people that are 15, 20, 25 or 30 years old today," said Jean-Claude Biver, president of the watch division at LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, which includes Hublot. "We found that next to a certain way of wearing clothes or a certain way of listening to music, they are interested in the tattoos. Therefore, I said, 'If the tattoo is, or is becoming, an art of the 21st century, we cannot just let this go.'
"If we partner with an art of the 21st century," he continued, "that's a way for us to be connected to the 21st century."
Collaborations with trendy artists are also a way for some brands to differentiate themselves in a crowded marketplace.
"Since we are a newcomer and a new player in the industry, for us it was essential to give a different and more innovative and contemporary message to our watches," said Manuel Emch, chief executive of RJ Watches, which produces Romain Jerome. "We noticed that most of our customers are in their late 20s, 30s and early 40s – so a rather younger customer base – and we also noticed that most of them share the same cultural references, if it comes to contemporary art or video games, for instance. Tattoo is one of these specific expressions of art of this generation."
High net-worth
In the case of graffiti art, rising prices of work by artists like Banksy have led to an increasingly affluent clientele, many of whom also buy expensive timepieces.
"High-net-worth people are the people that are buying street art; they buy vintage cars, and they buy very high-level luxury watches," said Sebastien Laboureau, an art adviser who specialises in graffiti. "When you're a watch company and you want to open up new marketing means, it makes sense to target what is very relevant in the art world today, which is street art and urban art."
Some critics have called such collaborations a bit forced, but the artists involved don't feel that way.
"The watch world has a lot of similarities with the tattoo world when you're a tattoo artist," Buchi said in a recent interview at his studio in the London neighbourhood of Dalston, with tattoo needles whirring loudly on clients' skin in the background. "There's something about the really small space in which you work that's the same when you're tattooing."
In July, Buchi established an Instagram account, watchesandtattoos, to showcase images of high-end watches on heavily inked wrists. Recent posts have included a chunky Audemars Piguet timepiece over a hand covered by a lion's head image and a stainless-steel Rolex Explorer juxtaposed with an ornate tattoo of a large black skull. Commenters on the posts frequently use the hashtag #wristporn.
The New York Times