FrontRunners: Gold Standard Time

Chopard’s collaboration with Kiichiro Masumura, a master of the Japanese lacquering technique called urushi, was originally intended to produce nine one-of-a-kind dials for the Chopard L.U.C XP Urushi (www.chopard.com) series of watches. But now the companies are expanding the collection and plan to contribute a percentage of its proceeds to the Japa­nese Red Cross, which is aiding victims of the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan in March. The dials of the $20,730 timepieces display flora and fauna significant in Japanese mythology. The raised images are created from gold dust applied by tiny brushes to painted lacquer backgrounds.