It is the fruit of a collaboration with Lucasfilm Ltd the rotor created by Kross Studio, a Swiss start-up founded in 2020 with the vocation of creating unprecedented art objects. Made of solid anodised aluminium with a black finish, its design is inspired by the ruthless Darth Vader and his star fighter, the TIE Advanced x1, which he piloted in 'Star Wars: A New Hope', the first film and fourth chapter of the greatest sci-fi saga of all time, written and directed by George Lucas in 1977. The cockpit acts as a rotor for winding any mechanical self-winding watch, housed inside the capsule. It is activated by an infrared sensor capable of detecting the presence of the timepiece and rotates at a speed of 13.6 revolutions per minute. When there is no watch inside, the device remains in standby mode to save energy. With a dedicated Kross Watch Winder smartphone app, available on the App Store and Google Play, the owner can define via the Bluetooth interface the optimal settings for the rotor, such as the direction and time of rotation, and thus control the charging of the watch. The dimensions of the rotor, which also comes with a Galactic Empire-inspired key for replacing the batteries, are fairly small: 20 cm long, 27.5 cm wide and 17.3 cm high; its total weight is 4 kg.
Price: $2,500 (available for purchase at kross-studio.com and selected authorised Kross Studio dealers for a limited time only).
