Timeless Storytelling: a story about Fossil and Disney

Time seems to always be a part of every Disney story, so when it came to them working with Fossil, it seemed to be a ‘tale as old as time’ in how inevitable it was.

“Fossil and Disney share a deep love of creative and rich heritage of design and innovation,” said Ryan White, Fossil’s senior creative director. “This is very present in the designs of our limited edition and special edition watches.”

In celebration of Disney’s 100th anniversary, White and his team at Fossil worked closely with Disney to create an iconic lineup of luxury watches and accessories that would honor Disney’s heritage and still be an authentic Fossil timepiece that people have come to know and love.

This isn’t the first time that Disney and Fossil have teamed up to deliver a product lineup before either. White shared that Fossil used to make all the watches for Disney’s resorts, stores, and hotels back in the 1990s, and felt that report helped forge this idea forward. “With Disney’s 100 years of design history at our fingertips, our teams really enjoyed diving into their archives to pull inspiration from iconic sketches, animation, and character work,” said White.

He continued saying that the inspiration came so easy being so connected to Disney’s characters and the legacy of storytelling that comes from their films. “The Disney team was very open to the direction we wanted to go in and were great partners on allowing us to make it our own,” White said, adding that the team was so inspired that they came up with more designs that didn’t make this Disney100 collection, but Fossil team hopes they get to be released one day.

It’s with all that inspiration that the Fossil team came up with their final lineup that includes the three watches in the Heritage collection and five special-edition watches inspired by vintage animations of Disney’s Mickey Mouse and friends.

For the Heritage Collection, Mickey Mouse stands front and center in each timepiece in a different art style that effectively then inspires the whole watch’s face. 

For example, the Sketch watch has Mickey presented in the style as if an animator just sketched him out. His iconic stance that was on the first-ever Mickey Mouse watches allows his arms to still be the hands of the watch face. To complete the look, you can see the handwritten notes that the animator wrote that describe that stance as if that drawn out Mickey were to be used in one of the films– all on a background that looks like the acetate paper that hand drawn animators used to draw on. “We wanted to show Mickey Mouse in a way that hadn’t been done on a timepiece before: from the perspective of the illustrator to capture the original process of 2D animation,” White said.

The special-edition Disney Fossil watches include Mickey, Minnie, and their friends like Goofy and Pluto in their iconic animated poses with special bands with specific colors that match their classic outfits. “Each timepiece was designed to celebrate Mickey Mouse’s uniquely iconic place in Disney’s history, as well as Walt [Disney] and the original animators,” said White. Added White to the degree of detail in the watches, “This was something that was very important to us and involved extended testing and sampling to ensure the end result and accuracy of the watches is as it should be.”

Fossil and Disney teams worked in close collaboration with one another to ensure that the designs for the watches would “stay true to their characters,” while also reimagining them to bring something unique for collectors.

From the special Disney designs in the watch faces, the equally fun watch bands, and the other unique luxury accessories to compliment the Disney100 collection, it looks like it was all-smiles all around, which the Fossil team hope rubs off on anyone who rocks the collection.

“I hope… you smile a little each time you see these characters smiling back at you. Big thanks to Disney and Mickey Mouse for always inspiring us and providing the world with so much joy and laughter,” said White.

The special Disney100 Fossil collection of watches and accessories is now available on the Fossil website and at select retailers.

Our special thanks to Ryan White and the entire Fossil team for contributing to this story!