Chopard LUC Full Strike ‘Día de los Muertos’

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Mexico’s Día de los Muertos — the annual November street festival that pays tribute to long-lost ancestors by “welcoming them home” — has become a tradition that is almost as widely recognised around the world as Valentine’s Day or Halloween.

But it only began to attract significant attention outside Latin America in 2015 when the raucous, colourful and sometimes intimidating event formed the backdrop to the opening of the James Bond film Spectre.

The scene had such an impact that Mexico City held its first Día de los Muertos parade the following year. It has since become a regular and highly anticipated event that attracts visitors from around the world.

That film also inspired numerous watchmakers — always on the lookout for a tradition to adopt — to create special edition models, with Chopard being among the first to do so.

Pictured here in deconstructed form is the 11th Día de los Muertos piece from Chopard’s high-end LUC manufacture — and it is the most ambitious yet, being based on the highly technical Full Strike chiming watch developed in 2016 to mark 20 years of LUC.

The Calibre 08.01-L minute repeater movement sounds the hours, quarters and minutes with exceptional clarity because the gongs on which the minuscule hammers strike form part of the glass protecting the dial, the whole component being machined from a single piece of sapphire crystal.

But what makes this unique example even more special is the eye-catching design depicting the calavera, or skull symbol, that has become synonymous with Día de los Muertos.

The image of La Calvera Catrina, a grinning female skeleton wearing haute couture, was originally created in the early 1910s by lithographer José Guadalupe Posada as a way of poking fun at Mexican elites who whitened their skin and dressed in European clothes.

But now La Calvera Catrina has become all but the mascot of Día de los Muertos, and it appears on the Full Strike in the form of a mosaic. The dial is said to take more than 100 hours of painstaking work to assemble.

The movement’s exposed striking hammers and power reserve indicator have been blackened to create the effect of eye sockets, while the shapes of the skull and teeth are formed using miniature inlays of milk opal, pink opal, orange and red carnelian, orange and red aventurine, golden obsidian and black jade.

The yellow ethical-gold case is engraved around the bezel with a traditional Mexican pattern. A further calavera image is cut into the crown, which serves to wind and set the watch, and to activate the striking mechanism.

A burgundy-coloured alligator leather strap with a cognac lining completes the colourful if ghoulish picture. Only this single example of the watch will ever be made — at a price that is strictly for those who dare ask.