One is a long history in producing watches for Hollywood, for which it has amassed more than 500 credits, more than any other brand – Elvis wore a Hamilton Ventura in 1961’s Blue Hawaii, while the plot of 2014’s Intersteller hinges on a Khaki Field Murph, partly designed by the film’s director Christopher Nolan, a more compact reedition of which was one of our favourite watches of last year. Today Hamilton does brisk business with accessibly-priced models across all the categories you’d expect – dive watches, field watches, pilot watches.īut its story also has a couple of quirks. The Hamilton Jazzmaster Face-2-Face III comes with a backstory.īetween 18 Hamilton was an American company, before a series of mergers and acquisitions bought it under the control of the Swiss giant the Swatch Group – home to Omega, Breguet, Blancpain, Rado and others. The pushers are also flipped – so the lower pusher starts and stops the chronograph function, and the upper resets it. The non-time-telling side features an inner track printed with a tachymeter (to measure speed, or any activity within a one-hour period) and a pulsometer (for measuring heart rate).Īll the scales are printed counter-clockwise since the chronograph – which Hamilton calls a “passing through chronograph seconds hand” – rotates ‘backwards’ on this side of the case. Which side you choose to display is determined by the job you’d like the watch to perform. It contains two movements, one for each side. The stainless steel case is housed in a hinged ‘cage’, and rotates on its horizontal axis so the watch flips over (hence ‘Face 2 Face’). It features a double-sided dial concept – one that tells the time and has a chronograph function, the other featuring three measurement scales. The watch itself is as thought-provoking as its title. What part of that name is the most troubling? The substitution of a number for a perfectly good word, as per a 1980s rap group? The use of a Roman numeral to flag this is the third itineration of a family, the sort of thing the grandson in an American business dynasty might find themselves saddled with at birth? The word ‘Jazzmaster’? Or perhaps the combination of all three? A Ripples? A Ripple? The Ripples?”īrace yourselves, then, for a new release from the mid-range watch brand Hamilton – the singularly-titled Hamilton Jazzmaster Face-2-Face III. People at watch-geek gatherings will ask ‘What’s that? And you’ll have to say ‘It’s a Ripples’. “It makes people think of ice cream, or chocolate bars, and it sounds quite a lot like dribbles, or triples, or nipples. Alas, it was a thumbs down for Speake-Marin, the high-end independent brand that had recently announced its entry into the luxury stainless steel watch market with a model it called Ripples. Among those singled out for Chris’s approval were Breitling’s Galactic, Junghans’ Chronoscope and Rolex’s Migauss (“Love the new-age-of-technology vibe”). Only 888 numbered pieces of the Jazzmaster Face2face are being made.Writing on his excellent Substack The Fourth Wheel, the watch journalist Chris Hall recently considered the names brands give to their products. Refined craftsmanship, with expertise dating back to 1892, in close partnership with high-tech materials and functionality ensure that the theme of duplicity never compromises wearability or precision. The two sides can accommodate different time zones, different frames of mind or different outfits – the wearer is always in the pilot’s seat. Each individual watch incorporates two wearing options, both making diverse style statements. The common denominator of the two contrasting faces are the decorated, skeletonized rotors of each automatic movement, fully visible in the oval-shaped case. A unique rotating case houses two dials, one presenting a sophisticated “boy racer” chronograph, the other a calm, elegant three-hand timekeeper. In the Hamilton Jazzmaster Face2face there are two different sides to the design concept – and to the timepiece itself. Avant-garde and classical embrace each other in a watch with two distinct personalities, guaranteed never to come face to face, on or off screen. The Swiss made American brand treads new watchmaking ground in 2013 by applying the concept of dual identity to its latest innovation, the Hamilton Jazzmaster Face2face. Hamilton watches have appeared in a wide selection of movies on this theme, ranging from The Talented Mr Ripley to Spider-Man. Jazzmaster Face2face Mastering the art of duplicityĭual existence is the ultimate magical ingredient of fairytales and fantasy movies.
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