Christopher Ward x seconde/seconde/ The Twelve Snake Brings Nostalgia to Year of the Snake

Today (January 29^th) marks the start of Chinese New Year, it’s also the release day for the new Christopher Ward x seconde/seconde/ The Twelve Snake, launched to celebrate the occasion. The fact we couldn’t tell you about it until today is why it isn’t included in our round-up of the best Year of the Snake watches from a few weeks ago, though it would definitely deserve a spot on there. It’s a fun, nostalgic take on serpentine watch design inspired by everyone’s favourite retro game, Snake.

I think everyone has played Snake at some point in their lives. I remember playing it on my old brick Nokia in my tent the first time I went to a festival – when smartphone charge lasted about four hours and the idea of mobile charging packs were an alien concept, while a Nokia could happily stay on for a week. There’s something remarkable in the simplicity of the gameplay that makes it addictive. Snake moves one of four directions. Snake eats food. Snake gets big. Serotonin goes up. Just don’t eat yourself because that’s obviously a bad plan for survival.

The Christopher Ward x seconde/seconde/ The Twelve Snake cleverly uses the pixel-like pattern of The Twelve’s distinctive textured dial to create the image of pixel art snake weaving its way across a vivid, backlit LCD-style green display. The food it’s pursuing is also the plus symbol that forms part of the Christopher Ward logo, which is another charming touch. seconde/seconde/, the alias of artist and designer Romaric André, is no stranger to adding pixel art to watches. He’s the designer behind the iconic Minecraft sword hands on a Rolex that shot him to popularity a few years ago.

Beyond the naturally pixelated display of The Twelve, this model is perfect for a Chinese New Year watch for other reasons. The Chinese Zodiac features twelve animals in its cycle, so there’s a numerical cohesion in their concepts, right down to the dodecagon bezel. It makes me hope this isn’t a one-off and CW might tackle the entire cycle going forward. Many other brands like Chopard have tackled the entire cycle previously and I was actually quite saddened to learn this year that having completed all 12, Chopard aren’t producing anymore; they were some of the coolest zodiac watches each year. Perhaps Christopher Ward can fill that void.

Speaking of filling voids, you’ll notice there’s a date window between 7 and 8 o’clock. That’s what Christopher Ward describe as the bonus bites section, based on a feature of the game, showing little game related easter eggs as the days go by. There are also some easter eggs on the back of the watch such as the snake appearing again on the rotor as well as an inscription celebrating the ‘Snake Year(s)’.

It’s powered by the Sellita SW200-1, Christopher Ward’s go-to Swiss movement with 38-hour power reserve and +/-20 second per day accuracy. I probably sound like a broken record, but I do wish brands would update their stock to the improved power reserve models because it’s such a nice quality of life improvement. Still, it’s essentially a waiting game until the old stock gets used up, I’m sure it will happen at some point.

As for pricing and availability, the Christopher Ward x seconde/seconde/ The Twelve Snake is £1,050 on steel bracelet or £850 on rubber strap, available in black or venom green to match the dial. It’s available to pre-order during a limited period from January 29^th – February 10^th.

More details at Christopher Ward.

​Oracle Time 

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