Hoptroff showcases Hotblack collection at CMJ Event
BIRMINGHAM, England, February 13, 2015 – Watch brand Hoptroff London will showcase its Hotblack collection at the CMJ’s Spring Trade Event at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole this weekend (February 15-16), as the British watchmaker makes a push into the UK wholesale market.
Renowned for its innovative luxury watches, Hoptroff London recently unveiled the Hotblack collection of stainless steel timepieces, featuring rugged, automotive sports styling fused with Bluetooth technology.
The brand will take part in the CMJ Trade Event as a Guest Supplier, showcasing the Hotblack range in the show’s Lounge area in Hall 2, with managing director Richard Hoptroff on hand to discuss the Hotblack range with retailers.
Hoptroff said of the UK wholesale push: “Hotblack watches are smart but sleek, intended for energetic, passionate people. Each model is crafted for a select audience – one has live football results, another has real-time financial data. Having secured retail distribution in London’s West End and Paris’s Rive Droite, we are now looking for one or two further retailers in the UK who feel they can reach out to our avant-garde customer base.”
The Hotblack collection is inspired by Henry Ford’s vision to make the latest innovations accessible beyond the elite few; each watch in the collection provides unique design elements to appeal to a wide variety of lifestyles. They also mirror the original Ford ethos: any colour you like so long as it’s black.
The Hotblack Gravitas is the foundation of the Hotblack collection, and offers the same perpetual calendar, automatic daylight light saving and 15 seconds/year accuracy as the other Hotblacks. For an additional calibration fee, it can even be subjected to the Hoptroff London calibration process, an 8-hour ordeal during which the temperature is slowly lowered to 0 degree C and raised to 50 degree C while being calibrated with an atomic clock. This increases the accuracy to 1 second/year.
The Hotblack Sports allows you to track a football match live with a subtle glance at your wrist. Once you have selected a match from your iPhone, the top dial shows the home team score and the left dial shows the away team score.
The Hotblack Stock Market continues the theme of displaying up-to-the-minute data, but this time it’s the financial markets. Placed at 9 o’clock, a small dial indicates a stock, index or exchange rate showing the percentage change since last night’s close.
The Hotblack Salah is even more remarkable. It indicates the direction to Mecca on the top dial, and today’s prayer times for Fajr, Dhuhr, Asr, Maghrib and Isha prayers. At the click of a pusher the bottom dial pointer moves between each prayer time, with the central hands responding to show the exact time of prayer that day.
The Hotblack Pharos has a different trick up its sleeve – at the 9 o’clock position, a small coloured light illuminates, triggered by events on your iPhone. It can be set to show appointment reminders and even the arrival of an email from someone special. Only the wearer knows what this little signal means.The Hotblack Collection represents Hoptroff London’s move to tailor its innovative timepieces to a new audience, with a price point of £1,199 including VAT for each black PVD-coated stainless steel timepiece. They require an iPhone4S or higher to operate, with Android support coming later in 2015.
Hotblack Collection Specifications
• Sapphire crystal
• Waterproof to 5 atmospheres
• 15 second/year accuracy
• Five year battery life
• Hands and hour digits coated in Superluminova
• Perpetual calendar with automatic adjustment for daylight saving
• Black PVD case with automotive-inspired styling
• Left-handed version available with pushers on the left side
