Chopard L.U.C Full Strike ‘Día de los Muertos’: A Symphony of Gold, Memory and the Beautiful Defiance of Death

The autumn wind sweeps across the tranquil waters of Lake Geneva, stirring delicate ripples and sculpting splendid crests upon its silvery surface. Along the shoreline, sycamores, oaks and birches surrender their summer greens to a breathtaking symphony of burnished gold, russet red and amber. 

Yet, amidst this seasonal splendour, Pedro finds himself drifting between memory and longing, his heart tethered to a homeland an ocean away. From the kitchen of his Mexican cantina in the heart of Geneva, intoxicating aromas of fragrant herbs, warming spices and the fierce, heady pungency of native Mexican chillies rise into the crisp autumn air, enveloping him in the familiar embrace of a world he has never truly left behind. 

For a fleeting moment, as the scents of his motherland mingle with the chill of the Swiss autumn, Xochimilco feels closer than ever.

 At 60, Pedro Morantes has learnt that home is not always a place one can return to whenever the heart desires. Sometimes, it is something one must painstakingly reconstruct, one memory, one meal and one cherished tradition at a time.

When he arrived in Geneva at 21, Pedro possessed little more than a battered suitcase, a few changes of clothes, a tentative grasp of French and an unshakeable conviction that his future lay beyond the familiar embrace of his family in Xochimilco, Mexico. 

He had not left because he loved them any less. Quite the contrary. He had left because he wanted to give them more.

The years that followed were a masterclass in perseverance. From busboy to banquet manager, Pedro learnt the language, absorbed the rhythms of the hospitality business and eventually completed a restaurant management course. 

At 45, after a quarter-century of saving, he opened his first Mexican cantina. His ambition was never simply to serve food. He wanted to transport Geneva to Mexico, one plate at a time.

He travelled repeatedly between Switzerland and Mexico, sourcing ingredients that spoke of home: masa for freshly made tortillas, fragrant vanilla from Veracruz, mezcal and cheese from Oaxaca, and chocolate for the intricate mole poblano de guajolote. 

His exacting standards earned him a loyal clientele, and his modest venture eventually grew into five successful cantinas.

Yet success never diminished the pull of Xochimilco. Every year, Pedro and his staff assembled an ofrenda for Día de los Muertos, its candles flickering beside photographs of departed loved ones, sugar skulls, traditional dishes, mezcal and golden marigolds. 

What began as a cultural observance became an intimate declaration of belonging.

In recent years, another object has acquired a deeply personal place in this ritual: Chopard’s L.U.C Full Strike ‘Día de los Muertos’. To Pedro, its intricately worked calavera is more than an extraordinary dial. 

It is a reminder that distance cannot erase ancestry, and that time, for all its relentless forward motion, need not sever our connection to those who came before us.

This year, however, his story acquires a new chapter. Enter the L.U.C Full Strike ‘Día de los Muertos’ Edition 13, a singular creation that elevates this emotional relationship between horology and heritage into an extraordinary exercise in artistic craftsmanship.

The 42.5mm case, fashioned from 18-carat ethical rose gold, establishes an immediately commanding presence. Its cognac-brown alligator strap, gilded hands and deep-blue accents lend the watch a suave, distinctly masculine character, while hand engraving across the bezel, caseband and crown demonstrates that Chopard understands opulence need not depend on diamonds. Here, authority resides in detail.

The dial, however, is the true showstopper. For its thirteenth interpretation of the Día de los Muertos theme, Chopard introduces eggshell marquetry for the first time, pairing it with deep-blue straw marquetry in an extraordinary calavera composition. 

One artisan devoted 160 hours to its creation, assembling more than 70 individually selected fragments of French-grown rye straw alongside painstakingly arranged eggshell inlays.

Each strand of straw is split, flattened and shaped by hand, then positioned in varying directions to capture light and articulate the skull’s contours. The eggshell, selected for its subtle colouring, undergoes an equally exacting transformation: cleaning, drying, hand-breaking and piece-by-piece assembly, followed by lacquering and polishing. 

Around the eye sockets, the fragments form a carefully graduated pattern against black lacquer, creating depth rather than mere decoration.

An engraved gold moustache, satin-brushed and finished with a raised L.U.Chopard logo, introduces a playful flourish. Fine chasing traces the skull’s perimeter, its lines echoing the straw’s natural veining before continuing across the case. 

This is decorative watchmaking with genuine conviction: fragile organic materials transformed into a durable expression of artistic audacity.

Beneath this exuberant exterior beats the hand-wound L.U.C Calibre 08.01-L, comprising 533 components, 63 jewels and a 60-hour power reserve. Its minute repeater announces hours, quarters and minutes through a mechanism whose defining innovation is a patented monobloc sapphire construction: the crystal and gongs are machined from a single piece, without screws, solder or adhesive. 

The result is a remarkably clear, resonant chime. The movement earned the prestigious Aiguille d’Or at the 2017 Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève.

Chopard’s fascination with chiming watches began with the L.U.C Strike One in 2006, culminating in the Full Strike a decade later. Its subsequent Sound of Eternity creations explored further acoustic possibilities, while the L.U.C Grand Strike has advanced the Manufacture’s expertise into grande and petite sonnerie territory.

Unlike simpler L.U.C interpretations, this Edition 13 combines the Full Strike’s sophisticated acoustic architecture with exceptional hand-executed marquetry. Five patented innovations underpin its movement, including mechanisms designed to prevent interference during chiming and ensure the hours, quarters and minutes sound in fluid succession.

Founded in Fleurier in 1996 under Karl-Friedrich Scheufele, Chopard Manufacture has spent three decades uniting technical innovation with traditional finishing. Its commitment to ethical gold adds another dimension: luxury is not simply what an object costs, but the values and expertise embodied in its creation.

Understanding the watch requires understanding the celebration it honours. Rooted in Indigenous Mesoamerican traditions, including those of the Aztecs, and subsequently intertwined with Catholic observances of All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day, Día de los Muertos is observed principally on 1 and 2 November. 

Families welcome the memory of departed loved ones through ofrendas adorned with photographs, candles, aromatic copal incense, marigolds, sugar skulls and favourite foods.

Its philosophy is radically different from Halloween’s familiar emphasis on fright, costumes and playful encounters with the macabre. Día de los Muertos treats death not merely as an ending, but as part of life’s continuing cycle. Its calaveras are celebratory rather than sinister; their smiles suggest that remembrance can triumph over absence. 

Popular culture, particularly animated cinema, has introduced the tradition to wider international audiences, although its deeper significance remains rooted in family, community and Indigenous heritage.

For Pedro, the watch expresses this conviction with uncommon eloquence. It is not a souvenir of Mexico, nor a fashionable appropriation of its symbols. It is a meeting of cultures through genuine craftsmanship, made meaningful by the wearer who understands what those symbols represent.

Come November, his cantina will glow with marigolds and candlelight. At a special dinner for staff, loyal customers and relatives arriving from Mexico City, Pedro will unveil a grander ofrenda, inviting guests to place photographs of their departed loved ones upon it. 

Amid the fragrance of traditional dishes, the clinking of glasses and the gentle murmur of family stories, his new Chopard will catch the light.

He will glance at the calavera and smile. Somewhere beyond the boundaries of the visible world, he likes to imagine, his ancestors are smiling, too.

And perhaps that is the ultimate achievement of the L.U.C Full Strike ‘Día de los Muertos’ Edition 13. Its singularity is not simply that no second example exists. It is that 160 hours of patient artistry, 166 years of Chopard’s heritage since its founding in 1860, and an extraordinary feat of acoustic engineering converge in an object capable of carrying a deeply personal story. 

For the discerning collector, this is more than a trophy of haute horlogerie. It is a celebration of identity, memory and the beautiful, defiant conviction that love outlasts time.

For more details, visit your nearest Chopard boutiques today. 

*Photos courtesy of Chopard.