Swatch and Damien Hirst Partner to Celebrate Mickey Mouse's 90th Birthday

If you're a fan of Damien Hirst's spot paintings of Mickey Mouse, but you experience sticker shock over their five-figure price tags, Swatch has just the tribute timepiece for you The watchmaker known for its playful and affordable, yet highly collectible, styles has teamed up with the famed British artist to offer a pair of watches in conjunction with Mickey Mouse's 90th birthday, joining a plethora of products created to celebrate nine decades of Walt Disney's most iconic character Hirst signed on with Swatch roughly a year ago to design the piece, inspired by the versions of his famous spot paintings he has created of the mouse that built the house of Disney.

Serious Swatch collectors likely will be setting their alarms for 11 p.m PST on Saturday, when 1,999 pieces of a style known simply as Spot Mickey, with Hirst's interpretation against a black dial, will go on sale online for 24 hours only Swatch chose Shanghai as the site for Thursday night's launch event, not only because of the brand's immense popularity throughout Asia, but also because the cosmopolitan city is where you'll find the watchmaker's Swatch Art Peace Hotel, a residency program for artists.

As part of the launch event, Swatch invited 10 of its in-residence artists to interpret Mickey Mouse - also notable, Giordanetti says, because it's unusual for Disney to agree to a concept that allows a group of contemporary artists free rein to interpret the icon as each wished Where might Spot Mickey rank among Swatch's limited-edition launches? Giordanetti laughs. . Source