Konstantin Chaykin founded his Moscow workshop in 2003 and was admitted to the AHCI in 2010, the first Russian watchmaker to be elected to the independents' academy. Early Chaykin pieces included a series of Russian-Orthodox-calendar wristwatches (showing the moveable feasts and church year) and the Lunokhod, an oversized desk-piece moonphase. The brand has consistently focused on unusual mechanical complications expressed through unfamiliar visual languages.
The Joker launched in 2017 and won the GPHG Audacity Prize the same year. Two large rotating disks at 9 and 3 o'clock indicate hours and minutes; positioned in the watch face they read as a smiling pair of eyes, with a moonphase indicator at 6 o'clock reading as a smiling mouth. The watch became one of the most-photographed pieces of 2017 and triggered the Wristmons line: Mouse, Clown, Dracula, Joker Halloween, Joker Christmas. The line is a study in how complications can be reframed as character design.
