If you've spent any time watching YouTube, you've run into this one eventually: Nico Leonard, the biggest watch creator on the platform, going off on Hublot. It's not a one-time rant. It's practically a recurring segment at this point, with entire videos built around the premise, other creators making reaction content to it, and clip compilations of "every time Nico has mentioned Hublot" racking up their own views.

So what's actually behind it, and is there more to the bit than a YouTuber picking an easy target?

Who's Doing the Complaining

Nico Leonard is a Dutch entrepreneur and YouTuber based in Belfast, and by most measures the largest watch-focused channel on the platform, with a subscriber count in the millions. Before he was a creator, he was a dealer: he founded the watch boutique Pride and Pinion in 2019 and still runs it. That matters, because his Hublot commentary doesn't come from a hobbyist's opinion so much as a dealer's read on what actually holds value in the secondary market, delivered in a style that's blunt to the point of being a personal brand in itself.

That combination, industry credibility plus zero filter on camera, is part of why Bloomberg profiled him in 2024 as an example of outspoken creators reshaping how Swiss watchmakers think about marketing. The piece quoted Leonard describing Hublot as "a fashion watch for people with more money than sense" in one of his videos, a line that's since become something of a catchphrase among his audience.

The Actual Argument, Not Just the Bit

Strip away the delivery and Leonard's core complaint is a fairly standard dealer's critique: resale value. Hublot's Big Bang line in particular has developed a reputation among watch flippers and secondary-market watchers for depreciating fast, with some pieces losing a large chunk of their retail price shortly after purchase. For a creator whose day job involves buying and reselling watches, that's not an abstract style opinion, it's a direct business complaint about a brand he says doesn't hold value the way its price tag suggests it should.

The secondary argument, which shows up across a lot of watch commentary beyond just Leonard's channel, is about image: heavy celebrity endorsement, frequent limited-edition drops, and a design language built around size and shock value rather than the understated horological tradition that collectors tend to reward with long-term demand. Whether you read that as fair criticism or snobbery depends a lot on what you personally want from a watch.

He's Not Actually Alone Here

Leonard didn't invent Hublot skepticism, he's just the loudest and most-watched voice repeating it. Other watch YouTubers and outlets have covered the same territory, from videos specifically asking why Leonard holds the grudge to broader "why does Hublot get so much hate" content across watch forums and social platforms. It's become enough of a fixture in online watch discourse that reaction videos to Leonard's Hublot takes are their own small subgenre.

The Other Side of the Story

It's worth saying plainly: Hublot is not exactly struggling. It's a wholly owned subsidiary of LVMH, generates hundreds of millions in annual revenue, and has built one of the more recognizable silhouettes in modern watchmaking with the Big Bang. The brand has also pushed real material innovation, including proprietary colored ceramics and scratch-resistant gold alloys, that traditionalist critics sometimes gloss over in favor of the easier "fashion watch" narrative. Hublot isn't trying to win over vintage Patek collectors, and by its own commercial numbers, it doesn't need to.

That's really the crux of the disagreement. Leonard is evaluating Hublot by the standards of a traditional Swiss watch dealer: does it hold value, does it fit the established collector hierarchy. Hublot built its business on being the brand that ignores that hierarchy entirely. Neither side is wrong about what they're measuring; they're just measuring different things.

Why This Feud Keeps Getting Attention

Part of the appeal is simply entertainment. A dealer with real industry standing saying the quiet part loud about an entire luxury category is more compelling content than another polished hands-on review, and it's a big reason Leonard's channel grew as fast as it did. But it also functions as a genuinely useful signal for newer collectors: when a working dealer is this consistent about steering people away from a specific line, on resale grounds specifically, that's worth factoring into a purchase decision even if you don't share his delivery style.

Whether Hublot deserves the reputation or not probably depends on what you're actually buying it for. If you want a watch that holds its value on the secondary market, the depreciation data backs up a lot of what Leonard is saying. If you want a watch that looks like nothing else on your wrist and don't much care what it's worth in five years, that same argument mostly misses the point.