In the summer of 2024, aBlogtoWatch helped to launch the new Gaga Laboratorio brand. Since then, I have had the chance to check out the brand’s debut Labormatic watches and interview the creative mind behind Gaga Laboratorio, designer and artist Mo Coppoletta. Gaga Laboratorio is an interesting brand concept that is only starting to take form. While it is textually connected to financial founder Ruben Tomella’s Gaga Milano brand, Gaga Laboratorio is something else entirely, with many of the concepts and future direction in the hands of Mo Coppoletta. Really, that is the nice thing about this company: It combines a business person’s passion for the watch industry with a creative person’s interest in watch design and branding. That means Coppoletta doesn’t have to worry about numbers as much as he needs to worry about emotion, beauty, and novelty. When you can detach those parts of the business, you have a better likelihood of creating the right chemistry needed for truly interesting watches to be made.
One thing Coppoletta wanted to make clear is that while the Labormatic watches have a case design that hearkens back to the cases used by Gaga Milano watches, that design does not define future Gaga Laboratorio products. Models released after the Labormatic will have different cases and won’t be limited to a design inspiration that follows the Gaga Milano brand.
Coppoletta is a talented artist with a varied background and broad experience. He combines an interest in beautiful textures and typography with an industrial design focus that allows him to understand product functionality and manufacturing. One of his major areas of business focus is tattooing, which is really the art of decorating otherwise plain surfaces with art. Coppoletta combines his various talents and interests for the Gaga Laboratorio project. He created everything from the logo and branding to the Labormatic watches themselves. Having such a well-rounded designer means that Gaga Laboratorio can have a highly refined and cohesive look, even though it is brand new. The Gaga Laboratorio website and products evoke Coppoletta’s love of vintage design and bold typographical art.
The goal of Gaga Laboratorio was to create luxury watches that were a bit more high-end than most Gaga Milano watches, but affordable enough to fly somewhat under the radar of the offerings from major Swiss luxury watch brands. The most important thing for Mo was that the watches feel more expensive than they are and that they offer something unique and beautiful in the space.
The two Gaga Laboratorio debut models are the green-hued Labormatic Cinquanta and the blue-hued Labormatic Bauhaus. Each takes a trip down memory lane to mid-century appliances that were being made in Italy at the time. There was an effort at the time to combine classic forms and decoration with modern appliances, gadgets, and vehicles. Companies believed that consumers would more readily choose their products over those of competitors (think toaster oven, vacuum cleaner, or radio receiver), if these products looked more like home decor or traditional art. In many instances, that tendency to dress up otherwise unsexy appliances was a brilliant move, and of course, that concept made its way into the world of pedestrian wristwatch design and construction.
The Labormatic watches imagine a mid-century mechanical timepiece that exists in a highly competitive space and needs to do more than just offer the time and a comfortable wearing experience – it needs to suggest something about the taste and status of the wearer. I think the Gaga Laboratorio Labormatic follows in this classic vein quite nicely. The Labormatic watches look a bit strange until you put them on the wrist. The size is very sensible, and these provide high ergonomic comfort. Wearing them is a wonderful fashion statement, but the designs are not so bold as to be jarring. I really think Gaga Laboratorio did a good job on this product, making it the right combination of familiar and fresh.
Both of the Labormatic watches feature steel cases that are 42mm wide and 13.3mm thick. Oddly, neither the watch cases nor the Gaga Laboratorio mentions the water resistance – which I imagine is probably a modest 30 or 50 meters. Over the dial is an AR-coated sapphire crystal and, depending on the model, the steel case is given a different finishing. The Labormatic Cinquanta for example has a mostly polished steel case, while the Labormatic Bauhaus actually uses a black PVD-coated steel for some sections (such as the outer flanks) to create a different visual style. To keep the watch symmetrical, the crown is located at the 12 o’clock position on the case. This makes the crown a bit more difficult to operate than a crown located on the side of the case, but it still works out OK. The crown looks cool, and because this is an automatic movement you won’t really need to be messing with the crown all that much.
The manner in which time is displayed on the dial of the Labormatic is unconventional. Rather than use hands, the movement has been adapted to use turning discs along with a minutes hand that looks more like a moving window on the Cinquanta version (and more like a traditional hand on the Bauhaus version). On the outer periphery of the dial is a window for the hours disc indicator, then a “window” or red point hander for the minutes, followed by a turning seconds disc which doubles as the brand logo. The various rounded levels and design elements keep the rest of the dial (not used to indicate information) visually interesting and aesthetically appealing. Reading the time is relatively straightforward once you get the hang of it. I would have really loved it if this watch sported a true jumping hour mechanism. With such a mechanism the hour indicator window remains solidly on the current hour until it switches over to the next hour. In the current Labormatic movement configuration, the hour hand is always moving, and some interesting design work was done on the disc to maximize legibility. In addition to some different colors, the markers on the minute indicator scale are different between the Labormatic Cinquanta and the Bauhaus models.
Powering the Labormatic watch is the Swiss Made La Joux-Perret G100 automatic movement. It operates at 4Hz with about two days of power reserve. You can view the movement through the caseback window, and I like the custom automatic rotor design which is meant to look like the interesting Gaga Laboratorio logo (created by Mo Coppoletta). Attached to the watches are Italian hand-made Saffiano leather straps to match the color palette of either the Gaga Laboratorio Labormatic Cinquanta green or Bauhaus black. Again, the use of custom components and original design work helps the entire Labormatic watch feel cohesive and interesting. It isn’t the watch for everyone (nor is it trying to me), but it is a very successful execution for the price point and for the new brand concept.
Since the Gaga folks and Mr. Coppoletta are hardly short on ideas, we can only image where the Gaga Laboratorio brand will go in the next few years. The Labormatic family is clearly meant as a nod to the Gaga Milano brand heritage, but as I mentioned above, that will not limit the future direction of the brand. I, for one, am pretty excited about what the folks behind Gaga Laboratorio have accomplished, and believe that they will discover plenty of fans. Price for the Gaga Laboratorio Labormatic reference LMBA-001 Bauhaus and reference LM50-001 Cinquanta watches is 3,900 Swiss Francs each. Learn more at the Gaga Laboratorio website.
