Swiss start-up Kross Studio is renowned for its revolutionary designs and collectibles. Now, they have set their sights once again on the watchmaking market with a new Star Wars Watch Winder.
Last spring, Kross Studio upended the world of watchmaking by creating the Ultimate Collector’s Set dedicated to the Death Star. It featured an innovative central tourbillon watch and an authentic Kyber Crystal prop shard featured in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
Both timepiece and film prop piece were delivered in a 1.2-metre-long immersive and functional art piece styled as an Imperial kyber crystal container. Now, Kross Studio, in collaboration with Lucasfilm Ltd., reveals its next chapter with a Star Wars Watch Winder.
Having upended the world of watches and clocks with its captivating creations, the Swiss company breathes new life into the watch winder. This time around they once again looked to Darth Vader’s commanding presence to inspire the new TIE Advanced x1- themed watch winding sculpture.
Fully Operational & ‘Force Sensitive’
The studio sets its watch winder apart as a fully operational art object. It integrates a winding engine into a solid aluminium sculpture which is directly inspired by the TIE Advanced x1 starfighter. That fictional ship was piloted by Lord Darth Vader himself in Star Wars: A New Hope.
This Star Wars Watch Winder is made of solid black anodized aluminium, fully machined, hand-finished and assembled in-house. It attests to Kross Studio’s superior engineering and manufacturing skills. The sculpture measures 20cm long, 28cm wide, and 17cm high, and weighs a total of 4kg.
Fittingly, the Star Wars-inspired watch winder harnesses the force of its powerful movement to maintain the mechanism of any automatic mechanical watch placed within the winding capsule. In a clever innovation, the Kross Studio TIE Advanced x1-inspired watch winder and sculpture comes equipped with an infrared sensor that detects the presence of a watch, and thereby activates the winder.
According to Kross Studio, the battery life of the Star Wars Watch Winder lasts over two years. Even when no watch is present, the device remains in standby mode to conserve power. It also boasts a Bluetooth interface offers the owner access to all its parameters available via a dedicated smartphone application.
In this way, the user can define optimal settings for their automatic watch model, fine-tuning the direction of rotation, rotation time, and load control. The watch winder also comes with a Galactic Empire designed key to replace the batteries.
This elite fleet of collectible art objects will not be available forever. The Kross Studio TIE Advanced x1- themed watch winding sculptures priced at US$2,500 (S$3371) each are available to purchase on kross-studio.com and at select authorized Kross Studio retailers.
(Images: Kross Studio)
