Chopard Marks Día de los Muertos With a Straw and Eggshell Skull Dial

We’re a week late on this one. Día de los Muertos was on November 1st and 2nd, and Chopard timed the 13th edition of its L.U.C Full Strike tribute to the holiday accordingly. But it's so nice it should still be mentioned. So Chopard has been celebrating Día de los Muertos for 13 years now. Each of these is a piece unique built around a calavera dial, and each one uses a different decorative technique on the same minute repeater. This new one might be my absolute favorite, made with rye straw and eggshell.

The case is 18k rose gold, 42.5mm wide and 11.55mm thick. That’s slim for a minute repeater, and it should wear closer to a dress watch than a chiming complication. Chopard engraved the bezel, caseband, crown and caseback by hand. There’s an anti-reflective sapphire crystal on top and a display back. Most brands would leave the case alone when they have a dial like this, but I'm digging the fact that Chopard went the extra step.

The dial starts as a solid rose gold plate. Over 70 slivers of blue rye straw, grown in France, are split, cut and set into it one at a time, with chased lines in the gold marking the outline of the skull. The eye sockets and teeth are made out of actual eggshell, which Chopard has never used before. The shell is broken into fragments, placed, then lacquered and polished flat, and around the eyes it’s packed more loosely toward the edges so they fade out. Below the nose sits an engraved gold moustache with a raised L.U.Chopard logo. Gilded fusée centrally mounted hands point to the time, and two small indicators at 2 o’clock show leftover power for the movement and for the chime. The railway minute track is engraved into the crystal.

Inside is the L.U.C 08.01-L, a hand-wound calibre Chopard launched in 2016 as its first minute repeater made fully in-house. It has 533 parts, beats at 28,800vph and has 60 hours of power reserve. The gongs and crystal are cut from one block of sapphire, which is why the Full Strike sounds as clear as it does, and Chopard holds five patents on the calibre, mostly for keeping the strike from being cut short or disrupted. For this edition the hammers, strike ratchet wheels, their bridge and the governor drum are blue CVD-coated to match the straw, and the movement carries the Geneva Seal. It comes on a hand-sewn cognac alligator strap with an engraved rose gold deployant clasp.

Like previous editions, only one of these will ever exist and price is on request, if it hasn't been sold already. The regular Full Strike is already a six-figure watch, so assume this goes well beyond that. See more on the Chopard website.