Hiroshi Fujiwara Only Wanted To Protect This OG Racing Watch's Beauty (EXCLUSIVE)
It’s been seven years since Hiroshi Fujiwara, one of the most important figures in modern Japanese street fashion, reached back into TAG Heuer’s archives and recreated one of its OG racing-inspired chronographs.
Now, for the third collaboration between the Swiss watchmaker and his label, fragment design, Fujiwara is the mastermind behind another limited-edition TAG Heuer Carrera. And this time, while the watch in question is a little different, Fujiwara’s approach to the collaboration remains characteristically straightforward.
“I wanted to interpret the glassbox design in a way that feels both familiar and distinctly fragment,” Fujiwara tells Highsnobiety. “My approach was about balance, taking the iconic shape of the Carrera glassbox and finding ways to simplify it, make it even cleaner. The black and white, and subtle lightning bolt are small details that create a quiet statement.”
This newest Carrera Chronograph features TAG’s silver “beads-of-rice” seven-row bracelet, a design reintroduced earlier this year, and the new domed sapphire glassbox crystal frame typical of the newest Carreras, first introduced in 2023.
The black-on-black dial encased in a white flange and silver body is reminiscent of TAG Heuer and fragment’s original link-up, but it’s all been cleaned up a little. No numbers on the subdials make for a simpler watch face, and adding the fragment logo to the date disk is a neat way of co-branding the watch without complicating the design.
Fujiwara’s interventions are relatively small, but he doesn’t see it as his place to upend the design of such a time-honored timepiece. Instead, on this newest watch, available for £7,300 (around $9,650), Fujiwara talks of protecting its form and deciding to “listen to its structure.”
This is typical of the designer. From Stanley cups (remember those?) to age-old luxury handbags, fragment’s biggest contribution to a collaboration is often its logo, its lightning bolt iconography signalling an item that got the seal of approval from a certified tastemaker. Fujiwara’s even gone as far as adding this branding to fruit, proving that there’s no such thing as overbranding.
If there’s something that Fujiwara likes, no matter how seemingly random, he’ll place his logo atop it as evidence of its place in his world. That’s the no-nonsense formula that’s kept fragment design alive and thriving for over twenty years. And it's the no-nonsense formula Fujiwara has applied to the TAG Heuer Carrera, twice.
Highsnobiety has affiliate marketing partnerships, which means we may receive a commission from your purchase. Want to shop the products our editors actually love? Visit the HS Style Guide for recs on all things fashion, footwear, and beauty.
