Mouse KING

This story is of course very close to the heart any master of horology thanks to the character of Drosselmeier, senior court advisor, wizard, and watchmaker, who started to “stick sharp things into the clock’s inside, so that little Mary felt quite sorry for it; but this did the clock no harm, which, on the contrary, got to life again and at once began to tick, strike, and chime, to the delight of all the family”. But this time, Konstantin Chaykin was more intrigued by another of Goffman’s characters – the Mouse King. The reason was clear – the forthcoming Chinese New Year, with the traditional oriental 12-year cycle bringing, in 2020, the year of the white metallic mouse and seeing Konstantin Chaykin considering different variations of mouse-inspired watches. That year the exact date of the Chinese New Year, 25^th January, coincided with his daughter’s birthday, as well as his mother Tatiana’s name day.

Coincidences are not accidental thought Konstantin Chaykin, which is why he decided to combine two characters – the first, the enterprising, inventive mouse of Chinese myths, the first animal which came to the reception of the Jade Emperor Yu Di, who wanted to get to know all of the earth’s inhabitants, and the second, the creation of Ernst Theodor Amadeus Goffman, the angry but extravagant Mouse King with seven heads and seven crowns. Of course, Chaykin couldn’t just present an angry mouse, given his creation of the “Wristmons” collection’s smiling moonphase indicator.