Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in Volume III of B.H. Magazine. For access to future issues, subscribe here.
Young Italo-Swiss outfit Gagà Laboratorio has entered the chat with a tidy duo of timepieces that break with the predictable groupthink around three-handed steel sports watches. From a superficial vantage, it’s understandable that some observers may accuse them of hopping aboard the “radical design” bandwagon. However, it’s also justifiable.
Founded by Ruben Tomella in 2024, Gagà’s not-so-secret weapon takes the form of Mo Coppoletta – Tomella’s friend and associate, who serves as Art Director of the brand. If you’re familiar with the name, chances are you’re properly into watches, as Coppoletta has lent his distinctive sketchbook style to an array of limited editions over the years, most famously at Bulgari.
Coppoletta’s involvement lends Gagà a dose of instant gravitas. In both versions of the Labormatic – the brand’s debut release – one can discern his singular artistic streak at work. Each watch is identically sized (42mm x 13.3mm); employing the same sector-esque dial layout, automatic Swiss-made movement and 12 o’clock crown.
In spite of this, the Labormatic’s core design elements are versatile enough to provide a canvas for projecting very different moods, depending on the colourway.
Resplendent in green, white, and gold, the Cinquanta (‘fifty’ in Italian) channels the optimism of Europe during the post-war period, and is complete with Golden Age sci-fi references.
On the dial, pastel shades of bluish green charge the watch’s silhouette – distinguished by large, nested lugs – with the aura of alien technology. Hour-and-minute hands are replaced with a combined analogue-digital display. As for the raised logo in the centre of the dial? That, as it turns out, is a seconds indicator: meaning it completes one full rotation every 60 seconds. Visually, the effect is novel – we’re slightly disappointed the source of the motion isn’t little green men.
By contrast, with its austere dial and almost completely monochrome palette, the Bauhaus Labormatic looks like the kind of watchmaking that will resonate with tall, dark, tortured, genius types. Or at the very least, fans of The Brutalist.
With this design, Coppoletta sought to replicate the “stark elegance of the 1920s German art movement.” This approach means that, beyond the Gagà logo and digital hour display, you won’t find a single superfluous illustration anywhere on the Bauhaus’s dial. A bold red lollipop hand, in conjunction with slender metal indices, is used to read the minutes. All the better if you’re somebody who believes that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
Both the Gagà Laboratorio Labormatic Cinquanta and the Labormatic Bauhaus have an RRP of CHF3,900 (AU$7,340).
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