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Richard S. Cunanan
January 24, 2017     |    

At The Break Of Dawn

L.U.C. puts out a magnificent tribute to the Year of the Rooster.

Chopard’s elegant L.U.C. collection has added a timely new member. The brand has combined Swiss workmanship, Chinese astrology, and Japanese technique to create a tribute to the newly dawning Year of the Rooster. The Chinese zodiac calendar runs in cycles; each year is represented by an animal, a creature that symbolizes the qualities of the people born within that sign, and to a degree, the year itself. This Chinese New Year will usher in the Rooster, and Chopard’s L.U.C. Urushi collection will be there to greet it with a beautifully lacquered limited-edition timepiece that depicts this year’s spirit animal.

The skills involved in this combination of three different cultures into a single limited-edition timepiece are considerable. The watchmaking capabilities of Chopard are on display, with their creation of a mechanical automatic caliber. The displays are hours and minutes hands only, and the dial is used to highlight the image thereon.

Japanese lacquerwork was used to depict the rooster on the dial. Roosters aren’t always the first choice when people think of colorful plumage, but the truth is they do have a wonderful deep richness to their colors, and the Japanese lacquer master has brought out a wonderful shimmer of gold and blue-green here. The Chopard association with Japanese lacquer is serving them well. Urushi, or urushi-e, is the Japanese art of lacquer painting.

In Japanese tradition, lacquer is made from the sap of the “lacquer” or “Japanese varnish” tree. It takes years to learn how it is harvested, aged, and treated to become a lacquer. The liquid lacquer is brushed on, multiple thin layers, one over the other. The artist uses the lacquer to capture tiny mother-of-pearl fragments.

This kind of expertise needs not just experience but dedication. To create this rooster dial, as with all previous L.U.C XP Urushi editions, Chopard turned to the partner that it has used for all the previous L.U.C. XP Urushi watches: the Yamada Heiando firm, official purveyor to the Japanese imperial family.

Master Kiichiro Masumura is acknowledged as the finest living lacquer artist in Japan, and thus the world. He is considered a living human treasure in Japan. (That’s not hyperbole; that’s an actual title he carries.) He designed and supervised the creation of all the L.U.C. XP Urushi dials, which were then personally executed by Urushi master Minori Koizumi.

L.U.C XP Urushi year of the rooster dial

(I’m just thinking out loud here, but being designated a Living Human Treasure must be a pretty nice thing. Just in case anyone reading this can swing that, I have a birthday coming up.)

And of course, there is the basis of the beliefs that formed this particular artwork, the Chinese Zodiac Calendar. “Zodiac” is a little misleading, actually: the Chinese calendar sort of runs on a cyclical system, but it’s much longer-term that the one-year system that we use to designate Leos, Geminis, and so on. The Chinese system uses a twelve-year cycle. So, for example, the whole upcoming year (2017 and part of 2018) is going to be the Year of the Rooster.

L.U.C XP Urushi year of the rooster dial

I got to wondering, well, what’s that going to look like? What does the Year of the Rooster mean to us all, including those people who were born in previous Rooster Years?

As it turns out, well, right off the bat, things aren’t looking so hot. Not to get everybody down, but when I started looking into this, things turned a little grim. You’d THINK that being a Rooster in the Year of the Rooster would be a great time, but, well… no. It turns out that Animal Years aren’t especially lucky for their respective people. In fact, the year of your animal is your LEAST LUCKY time in the entire twelve-year cycle. So, right away, that’s some bad news. (“Year of the Rooster – Lucky for everybody except Roosters.”)

There are SOME lucky things for Roosters this year, of course, but there are just as many unlucky – possibly more so. There are some lucky flowers, and lucky colors. On the other hand, there’s an entire compass direction that’s said to be UNlucky – East – so that seems like kind of a harsh deal. (“25% of the time, you’re going to be in trouble.”)

And what are Roosters themselves like, the people born in these years? Well, they tend to be confident. They can be confident, pompous, and blunt. They like being the center of attention, and they aren’t shy about giving their opinions of others. They’re healthy, and they like sports; they’re hard-working, and highly motivated. Plus, this particular year is the Year of the Fire Rooster.

So as the Year of the Rooster comes upon us, Chopard has joined Chinese, Swiss, and Japanese traditions into an amazing wristwatch that will no doubt be a joy to behold for the year to come. If you’re lucky enough to be one of the 88 owners, may the Rooster within you crow ever brighter.

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