Kobe has been associated with the Hublot brand for a few years now and they have already created two watches together but the company wanted to do something nice for him and his retirement. What came from that was a fancy dinner where they unveiled the third watch designed by the company in Kobe’s honor called the “Classic Fusion Kobe Bryant HeroVillain timepiece”. Only 24 of the HeroVillain’s were made so they will be hard to come by even if you have the money. An unexpected twist from the dinner was we also got some more clear details about what Kobe plans to do with his life after basketball.
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Hublot held the dinner in a $22 million dollar mansion in Beverly Hills that included an on-stage interview, a live snake, Dom Perignon and of course, the HeroVillain itself.
It was during the interview with Erin Andrews that Kobe gave us more insight into what he is doing with himself these days and what’s to come.
“The day of the last game,” Bryant told Andrews on stage, “I was at the office creating stories, editing stories, getting this business going. That’s what my days are like now. I love it. It’s a little obsessive.”
The stories he is referring too are stories for kids from his Kobe Studios.
“I kept drawing blanks,” he said, “until I finally asked [myself]: ‘What do you like doing?’ [And that’s] storytelling — I like telling stories to kids, I love watching the look on their faces as their imagination starts working and they start getting the moral tale of the story. I enjoy that so I decided that’s what I’m going to do.
“It really started with the simple idea that kids don’t need to read another boring athlete biography,” Bryant said. “Where’s the fantasy? Where’s the mythology as it relates to sports? How can you teach life lessons through sports to children?”
Bryant told Andrews he was working with a team of writers (“writers with weirdo backgrounds,” specifically) daily and said there was no set timetable for the project to be finished. “I’ll know when they’re ready,” he said. “That’s the one thing about storytelling [compared to] what I’ve been doing — I don’t have to put anything out there until it’s just right.”
Kobe has also been picking the brains of some of Hollywood’s elite, such as Steven Spielberg, J.J. Abrams and Jerry Bruckheimer.
Eventually the focus of the night got back to the watch itself. Bryant-specific details of the 45mm black- and gold-accented ceramic watch include a black snake appliqué on the dial (a reference to his “Black Mamba” nickname), Kobe’s KOB16 logo engraved on the case back and a strap that incorporated a black python. In another nod to the man who wore No. 24 on his jersey, the production run of the watches, which are being sold exclusively at Hublot’s Beverly Hills boutique, is limited to just 24 numbered pieces, each with a $20,400 price tag.
“The hero/villain thing was something I came up with at the beginning of the year,” Bryant explained. “I was thinking about the way my career had been going and where it was and the philosophy around that – which is the hero/villain philosophy. Nothing’s black or white or this or that. We’re all both hero and villain.”
Check the gallery for the watch!
