Five Artful Watches to Celebrate the Year of the Rat

The Chinese zodiac, which has existed for thousands of years, is based on 12-year cycles, with each year assigned a symbolic animal, whose characteristics are believed to be exhibited in the people who are born in that year While Hong Kong dropped a little over 6%, attributed to last year's political unrest, exports to mainland China grew more than 15% Chinese New Year provides an opportunity to target specialized pieces to that burgeoning market as well as to affluent Chinese nationals and aficionados worldwide.

Provided with a new animal theme each year, the brands typically showcase their artisans, who have depicted this year's resourceful rat using age-old métiers d'art-decorative crafts such as engraving or enameling Chopard chose the ancient Japanese art of Urushi lacquer to create the dial of the L.U.C XP Urushi Year of the Rat For the Year of the Rat, these artisans created two themed designs pairing rats and pomegranates, a fruit that symbolizes life and fertility.

Blancpain takes a more technically artful approach to the theme with a special edition of its Traditional Chinese Calendar, a complicated tour de force that required five years of research and development to complete Because a lunar year is about 11 days shorter than a solar year, a leap month is added to the Chinese calendar every two to three years to maintain consistency with the seasonal cycle. . Source