Round-UpMonsters And Skeletons: Five Eerie Timepieces In Celebration Of Halloween
From skulls, Memento Mori references, popular occult colour purple to a one-eyed Slavic monster, here are five mechanical watches that encapsulate the spirit of Halloween (October 31), which marks the onset of rituals across the globe that remember the dead
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Jacob & Co Astronomia Tourbillon Art Skull White Gold
Halloween At The Catacombs
The first watch in celebration of Halloween features a mound of 3D hand-engraved skulls protruding from the dial. This is the Jacob & Co 42mm Astronomia Tourbillon Art edition in titanium. With their hollow sockets, fine sets of teeth, and sharp jawlines, these realistic looking skulls crafted from 18-karat white gold recall eerie visuals of the Paris catacombs, cemeteries, danger signboards, memento mori items, basically objects and situations under the overarching theme of ‘death’. Only five skulls have ruby eyes: four of these are placed as cardinal markers, and one sits atop the iconic Astronomia four-arm vertical movement ending with a 288-facet Jacob-cut diamond, the gun-blue hour and minute hands within a sub-dial outlined in skull and bones, a rotating magnesium globe, and a flying tourbillon. The watch comes attached to a blue alligator leather strap secured to an 18-karat folding buckle, embedded with 18 baguette-cut white diamonds.
Bell & Ross BR 01 Skull Bronze
Halloween And The Chattering Skull
The 500-piece limited-edition Bell & Ross BR 01 Cyber Skull Bronze, priced higher than its older black ceramic counterpart, appeals for its skull aesthetic on the skeletonised dial. This ominous symbol harks to concepts of memento mori and Vanitas, Japanese origami, and masks that American paratroopers wore on D-Day in 1944. As the 46mm watch is wound, the skull’s lower jaw, the inbuilt bridges and plates enable it to move up and down for dramatic effect. Gold-plated baton hands with applied Super-LumiNova complement the stick indexes printed on the underside of the glass. This avant-garde timepiece runs on BR-CAL.210, at 28,800vph, offering 50-hour power reserve.
Louis Erard X Konstantin Chaykin & Louis Erard Le Diptyque
Halloween And The Time-Devouring Monster
The two identical stainless steel watches from Louis Erard in 39mm purple outer minute track and 42mm green track are themed on the Slavic mythological one-eyed monster, Likho. Unlike the wrath-inducing evil eye in the legend, this eye is given a positive spin by Russian watchmaker Konstantin Chaykin who collaborated with the Swiss brand for the watch, and calls it a ‘protective amulet against evil spirits’. Chaykin’s watches fall under the ‘Wristmons collection’, which literally translates to ‘wrist monsters’. Recalling Chaykin’s first Joker watch whose cyclopean gaze is made up of similar white discs, the all-encompassing eye on these editions forms the hour sub-dial with three, six, nine and 12 o’clock hour markers in Arabic. The second sub-dial with red outline and serrated edges—situated at six o’clock on the silver-plated dial with sunray wavy finish—resembles the mouth with the ogre’s teeth. Termed as ‘Time Eater’ watches for devouring the elapsed time, the central minute hand hints at a human fist with (what could be) an outstretched middle finger on one end and a pair of devil horns at the other end.
Corum Bubble 47mm Chronograph
Halloween And The Distorted Skull
The Corum Bubble collection consists of titanium grade-5 edittions with diverse interpretation of a centrally located human skull design on the dial; making these a natural addition to the list of watches in focus for Halloween. There’s the 47mm Bubble Skull X-Ray showcasing a 3D skull on the dial that dispels an eerie green light under poor-lit conditions. Severin Wunderman, a Holocaust survivor and the erstwhile owner of Corum, unveiled the skull designs in 2000; as his reflection on the theme of life and death. The topped double antireflective sapphire crystal that distorts the dial imagery when viewed at an angle, by magnifying the visual of a skull or villainous face under a hat. Powered by the in-house mechanical movement calibre CO 771, the watch offers upto 55-hour power reserve. Secured to the case is vulcanised leather strap fitted with pin buckle in PVD coating.
Chronoswiss Open Gear Resec Voodoo
Halloween And The Art Of Voodoo
Violet, a colour associated to the occult, magic and mystery, features prominently in the Resec Open Gear Voodoo model from Chronoswiss, in combination with the darkest and deadliest hue of them all, black. The 42-part dial, comprising purple-hued outlines of the small seconds sub-dial, 50-hour power reserve indicator and outer minute tracker, is cradled in matt black 44mm DLC case. Cylindrical Super-LumiNova indexes appear like participating white candles in an occult ritual. The remaining portions of the dial—viewed as the soul of Voodoo—is made resplendent with an intertwining hand guilloche pattern patented by the brand’s Atelier Lucerne, as indicated on a plaque placed at three o’clock, adjacent to the bulbous crown.