Chopard has made a 13th one-of-a-kind L.U.C Full Strike for the Day of the Dead, and this one puts a calavera—the decorated skull that has become one of the best-known symbols of Mexico’s Día de los Muertos—on a dial of blue straw and eggshell marquetry. The L.U.C Full Strike “Día de los Muertos” Edition 13, Ref. 161947-5007, is cased in 42.5mm of 18k ethical rose gold, and only one will be made. It arrives just ahead of the holiday, observed on November 1 and 2.
Chopard's L.U.C Full Strike "Día de los Muertos" Edition 13 is a one-of-a-kind minute repeater in a 42.5mm ethical rose gold case. Its calavera dial is blue straw and eggshell marquetry, and inside is the hand-wound L.U.C Caliber 08.01-L with its sapphire gongs.
Chopard is plain about what the series is for. On its page for an earlier edition, the Maison describes these watches as a way of honoring Mexican culture with a piece dedicated to All Souls’ Day, each one a unique model finished by its artistic crafts workshops. The earlier piece used a calavera in hand-set marquetry of fine, colored stones, with a bezel hand-engraved in a graphic pattern inspired by Mexican culture, and Chopard says its master dial-maker spent more than 100 hours on the dial alone.
For Edition 13, the materials change. The dial combines blue straw marquetry with eggshell marquetry, which would be a first for Chopard, along with black lacquer and hand engraving. A single artisan spent more than 160 hours on the dial. The case, bezel, and crown are hand-engraved, and the watch is fitted with a cognac-brown alligator strap and a rose gold folding clasp.
Inside the Chopard Día de los Muertos Full Strike
Beneath the dial is the L.U.C Caliber 08.01-L, the minute repeater Chopard has made since 2016, which strikes the hours, quarters, and minutes on demand. What sets it apart is the way it produces sound: the gongs and the crystal over the dial are machined as a single piece from a block of sapphire, with no welding, screws, or glue.
Chopard says it filed several patents across roughly 15,000 hours of development, and in 2017, the rose gold L.U.C Full Strike won the Aiguille d’Or, the top prize at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève.
A minute repeater, which Chopard calls the queen of horological complications, tells the time by sound. Press the pusher and it plays the hours on a low note, the quarter hours on paired notes, and the minutes since the last quarter on a high note, so 10:49 comes out as ten low strikes, three double strikes, and four high ones. The clarity of those notes is the whole point, and that is where Chopard’s single-piece sapphire construction comes in.
Chopard’s page for the earlier edition says the movement is hand-wound, beats at 4 Hz, uses 63 jewels, carries about 60 hours of power reserve, and is certified both as a chronometer and with the Poinçon de Genève. The case measures 42.5mm by 11.55mm with a sapphire caseback. Edition 13 shares those dimensions, and its hammers and other striking parts get a blue treatment to match the dial.
In our view, the series treats a cultural tribute on a high complication with care. The calavera is not a motif added to a catalog watch; it fills the dial of the minute repeater family that won the Aiguille d’Or, and each edition is a single piece with its own technique. If Chopard confirms the straw and eggshell, that will be the most interesting choice here: humble materials asked to read as a portrait on a gold dial.
Chopard has not published a price. For a house whose recent work also includes the L.U.C 1963 Heritage Chronograph and Regulator, Edition 13 shows the L.U.C workshops’ decorative side as much as their mechanical one. Día de los Muertos is a time for remembering loved ones who have died, and a watch that tells time by sound is an apt way to mark it.
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