RULETHE ROOST

Charlene Co

he christmas decorations have only just come down and the post-holiday indulgence guilt has barely set in before we are already ushering in the Year of the Rooster. This boisterous, quick-witted creature gives watchmakers a lot to work with. Using a range of techniques, including enamelling, lacquer and miniature carving, the master craftsmen have produced some spectacular timepieces that are fitting tributes to 2017’s feathered friend. Breguet honours this member of the Chinese zodiac with the Reine de Naples 8958, a one-off with a rooster cameo as its dial. In this delicate piece, Breguet’s craftsman, using a steel stylus, has carved a rooster on a shell. For its tribute, Chopard has used a traditional Japanese lacquer technique called urushi to create a colourful rooster on the dial of an LUC XP ultra-thin model. As with its previous urushi editions, Chopard collaborated with the lacquer masters of Yamada Heiando to produce these timepieces. Jaquet Droz goes the extra mile to create two versions of the Petite Heure Minute Rooster. One uses grand feu enamelling to paint a dial housed in a 39mm or 35mm red-gold case; the other features a rooster sculpted in red gold set against a hand-painted dial inlaid with jadeite and mother-of-pearl. Piaget, meanwhile, has painted the proud rooster onto the dial of its classic Altiplano model using grand feu cloisonne enamelling and mounted it on a white-gold case set with 78 diamonds. Ulysse Nardin has brought the feathered creature to life in the Classico Rooster by using a complex technique it has mastered over the past two decades, champleve enamelling. This involves carving microscopic cells into the dial and filling them with enamel. Vacheron Constantin has enriched its Métiers d’art The Legend of the Chinese Zodiac series with a piece that pays homage to the rooster, in which a foliage motif surrounds a handengraved rooster, in either platinum or pink gold, set atop an enamelled dial.