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Fiona Krûger: Death suits her so well

Fiona Kruger design watches and timepieces from Fiona Kruger Timepieces, are all examples of her “artistic approach to Haute Horlogerie”, and with her Skull Watch collection and more recently her Chaos Watch collection, not forgetting the Vanitas series of skull clocks produced in association with Epee, she has firmly established the idea that a watch and timepiece designer can produce a high art mechanical timepiece that is as appealing to women as it is to men.

The story behind all Fiona Kruger timepieces, including her Skull Watch collection, her Chaos Watch and Mechanical Entropy collection, and the Vanitas series of skull clocks produced in association with Epee, is a story to inspire men and women, a story of how a young art student with a fine art background, originally from Scotland and with no experience in the world of watchmaking design, established herself as not only a designer but a timepiece manufacturer in the world of mechanical Swiss watchmaking. Looking at any Fiona Kruger timepiece, from the very first Fiona Kruger Memento Mori Skull Watch, through the Fiona Kruger Black Skull Watch, Fiona Kruger Chaos Collection and Mechanical Entropy Collection to the Fiona Kruger Vanitas Clock pieces, in both colorful and dark versions, every detail, from the skull shape case onwards to the hour and minute hand, reflects the designer’s personal story and fine art background. Fiona Kruger was born in Scotland but lived in Mexico for three years as a child and experienced the Mexican “Day of the Dead” (Dia de Los Muertos), which clearly left an extremely vivid impression before periods spend living in Sao Paulo Brazil and South Africa. Kruger studied fine art at Edinburgh College of Art before time spent working studying for her Master’s degree (partly sponsored by Audemars Piguet) as a design student at ECAL (University of Art and Design Lausanne, Switzerland) and later taking up residence in Alsace France. During that time at ECAL (University of Art and Design Lausanne, Switzerland), research time spent at the manufacture Audemars Piguet (AP), the Patek Philippe museum in Geneva, training at Hermes and her attraction to the design and artistry of the “Mary Queen of Scots” skull-shaped ‘death head watch’ were to form the artistic inspiration for her limited series Fiona Kruger timepieces and fascination with Haute Horlogerie. It is indeed, incredible to think that the Mexican “Day of the Dead” (Dia de Los Muertos) and the legendary Mary Queen of Scots skull-shaped death head watch were to provide, at least in part, a young Scots woman with the inspiration and drive required for a woman to enter the Swiss watchmaking and luxury industry, and challenge the established sense of what a women’s watch could be.

It is difficult to imagine the number of email and phone contacts the designer Fiona Kruger needed to make to ensure her original high art skull case design, mechanical movement featuring intriguing black elements and hours hand, and then subsequent Chaos and Mechanical Entropy collection of watches and timepieces become a reality. For the luxury industry, ECAL produced a timepiece designer that would beat an important path for women, women’s watch and timepiece manufacture, but at the same time refresh the Swiss watchmaking industry with an injection of fine art, with collections that are now sold worldwide, everywhere from Harrods in London to Westime Los Angeles, Provident Jewelry Miami to Berger Joyeros in Mexico and beyond, the recognition of the Grand Prix Horlogerie de Genève, and designs beyond the skull-shaped case which some have compared to Faberge and Peter Speake-Marin pieces.

The original Watch Fiona Kruger mechanical movement Skull Edition of 2013, followed by quickly by the Watch Fiona Kruger Black Skull and the more colourful Watch Fiona Kruger Celebration Skull. In a short time, the fourth series, the Fiona Kruger Timepieces “Petit Skull (Celebration) Eternity”, and the Grand Prix Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG) recognition mentioned above. This timepiece, as do some individual pieces within the Fiona Kruger Timepieces skull-shaped mechanical Vanitas Clock collection, follow the color use and meanings derived from the Mexican “Day of the Dead” (Dia de Los Muertos), with blue for trust, yellow for death itself, red for life, white for purity, pink for celebration, purple for grief, orange for the sun and black for mortality. In the best traditions of the “Day of the Dead” (Dia de Los Muertos), green is not used.

While some watch and timepiece or clock models from Fiona Kruger Timepiece have stressed the darker tones of the Dia de Los Muertos, such as the Fiona Kruger Black Skull, with black case and black PVD movement contrasted with the hand polished and Super Luminova treated multilayer dial, hour and minute hands and decor, the more colourful pieces sometimes also have an added element of humour, such as the Fiona Kruger Vanitas which features a “yawning” jaw to the skull to provide the power reserve indicator and indication. A feature that will bring a smile to the face of any client.

The client base for all Fiona Kruger Timepieces has proven to be exceptionally broad, and not just women, but a client base spread all across the world. Her preference of working with artisan producers of mechanical movements, cases and leather craftsmen for straps, and the artistry inherent in the designer’s early skull-shaped case designs, and subsequent models for the luxury industry such as the ‘exploding caliber’ Mechanical Entropy and Fiona Kruger Chaos Collection have all added to the level of client attraction, everywhere from London, to Dubai, Singapore and Brazil. It is certainly the case that all that email and telephone contact that Fiona Kruger, the young Scottish designer with a fine art background had to make to get her design of skull shape case mechanical movement designer watches into stores, was very much worth the effort and her place in the Swiss and worldwide luxury industry is now assured.

As if she hadn’t shaken up the Swiss luxury watchmaking industry enough, and forged a place for women watch and timepiece entrepreneurs within it, Fiona Kruger watch, ever mindful of respecting their client base and catering for their every need, even accept custom commissions by email, where the client themselves is given a hand in their own case and watch design detailing, adding their own sense of art and building on the artisan movement housed within the case.