Hamilton Watch Co. has been a provider of timepieces to filmmakers and prop masters since one of its watches first graced the silver screen in 1951’s The Frogmen. (A new piece inspired by that watch debuted this year at Baselworld.) Now the Swiss brand with American roots announces the release of a new, futuristic watch designed by an Oscar-nominated production director: the Hamilton ODC X-03.
The Hamilton ODC X-03, a limited edition of 999 pieces, is actually the third in a trilogy of watches inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s iconic film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, which featured Hamilton watches; it follows up the X-01, which was launched in 2006, and the x-02, from 2009. It is the product of a meeting between Hamilton executives and the three-time Oscar-nominated production designer of 2014’s Interstellar, Nathan Crowley, at that year’s Hamilton Behind the Camera Awards (BTCA) in Los Angeles. (The watch company hosts the awards annually, and viewers of Interstellar will likely recall the key role a Hamilton watch played in that film.)
Like its most recent predecessor, the X-02, the ODC X-03 is powered by three separate movements — an automatic ETA 2671 and two ETA 901.001 quartz calibers — and features an immense 49 mm x 52 mm hexagonal case, here made of titanium with black DLC coating. The three movements display the time in three different time zones via “orbiting” subdials arranged around a photorealistic depiction of Jupiter on the dial — an image inspired by Kubrick’s 1968 sci-fi blockbuster. The stick hands on the subdials are in the Hamilton brand’s signature colors of orange and black. Hamilton’s watchmakers required more than 120 different operations to construct the dial, and used cutting-edge technologies such as 3D printing (for the Jupiter dial) and laser engraving.
Other elements of the watch’s space-age design include the black galvanic rings around the subdials, the gaskets and rivets inspired by the Endurance spacecraft from Interstellar, the crown’s seamless integration into the case, and the caseback engraved with facts about the planet Jupiter, such as its size and temperature. The astronaut-style strap is in black textile with rubberized leather lining and attaches to the wrist with a black PVD-coated titanium buckle. The case has a sapphire crystal with double-sided nonreflective coating and is water-resistant to 100 meters. Set to launch in 2017, the Hamilton ODC X-03 will be priced at 3,500 Swiss francs (approximately $3,490).
