Konstantin Chaykin Joker ‘Fiat Lux’

The act of creation brings unpredictability into our lives, which is characteristic of any creative activity. The Joker watch, designed by Konstantin Chaykin as a realization of his idea of the immediate emotional impact of a watch with a face- shaped dial, turned out to be a much more significant event both in the career of the master and in the development of modern watch design than just another experiment by an independent watchmaker. In the first few days after the original Joker was unveiled at the Basel fair in spring 2017, this limited edition sold out, and it turned out that many watch connoisseurs around the world wanted to acquire the same or a similar watch. The usual approach would have been to release a series of slightly different models, for example versions with a different colored dial, or in gold, platinum etc., but Konstantin Chaykin was not very interested in such work, he preferred to create new watches. He therefore began to think about inventing new characters and equipping the watches with other complications, preferably ones that he had invented himself. In 2017, new watches with anthropomorphic dials, Clown and Pumpkin Head, were launched alongside the Joker, creating the Wrismons collection.

The Joker watch and other Wristmons thus became a unique art project that developed from the outset according to an almost unpredictable scenario. The work, which has continued for seven years, resulted in a large number of Wristmons, wherein the number of new editions of particularly popular characters with slightly different designs is extremely small compared to the traditions of the industry. To date, there are around forty Wristmons that Konstantin Chaykin has invented over the years – from the original Joker to the fantastic Martian Tourbillon, which works to the rhythm of the rotation of Mars, and the super-complex Stargazer watch with 17 complications. Chaykin’s Wristmons collection is a very extensive project, for which it is difficult to find an equivalent in the annals of watchmaking. Therefore, the appearance of each new chapter in the creative history of Wristmons cannot go unnoticed.