In 1991, Swatch commissioned Austrian artist Alfred Hofkunst to design a menu of “Swatchtables” for their Pop Art collection. These aren’t just watches, they are vegetables for your wrist!
“Sculptural, shapely and unexpected, the artist’s three creations for Swatch are small-scale works of Pop Art. Hofkunst set the classic watch format aside and instead fashioned organic, eye-tricking, sculptural watches that look as if they are made out of food.” –Swatch
The One More Time 3 piece set included a cucumber (Guhrke), a red pepper (Verduhra), and a sunny side up egg over a slice of bacon (Bonjuhr). It is often referred to as the Swatch veggie set, despite having an egg over a sizzled piece of pig flesh for one of the straps.
Each vintage watch in the collection is limited edition and numbered out of 9,999 available worldwide. The dial of each model features a small print of Alfred Hofkunst’s signature.
The red pepper (no, it’s not a tomato) and cucumber watches have a plastic shroud that goes over the base watch – they basically look like the bacon and egg model beneath the cover. The collection is powered by Swiss made quartz movements made by ETA, the movement factory also owned by Swatch Group.
Bacon and Egg (Bonjuhr) – ref: PWZ101
Red Pepper (Verduhra) – ref: PWZ102
The packaging is signed Swatch / One More Time / by Alfred Hofkunst 1991. The set is often incorrectly dated as being from 1997 because the font on the packaging looks like a 7 instead of a 1. Here, we found a NOS full set that was originally sold in Germany – notice the retail price (unverbindliche preisempfehlung) of DM 125.00 (Deutsche Mark).
“Gu(h)rke (PWZ100) is a cool green, right down to the dial, inked to look like a moist, seeded slice of cucumber. Bonju(h)r (PWZ101) is a strip of bacon, cleverly curly and striped, fairly crisping at the wrist. Verdu(h)ra (PWZ102) is an abundant, glistening red, the dial cushioned inside a plump-looking bell pepper. Each piece’s title is a bit of multi-lingual wordplay, and the work is pure visual play.” –Swatch
Can you wear them?
These watches are works of pop art and are not really meant to be worn. Like food, this collection will last longer when sealed in the original plastic. However, you can wear them if you want, but be careful about the aforementioned plastic shroud popping off. Also, the cucumber and bacon straps do not fit smoothly into the plastic tang buckle, so they may have to bend a bit to slip through.
Additional Information:
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