Hamilton Ventura Edge Skeleton

When it comes to non-symmetrical watch cases, the Hamilton Ventura Edge Skeleton is in excellent company. Cartier’s contributions to the canon – the “Crash” models first launched in 1967 and to a lesser extent the Tank Asymétrique – are perhaps the most iconic. But Audemars Piguet, Rolex and Patek Philiippe have all dabbled, and the results tend to qualify for “grail” status with flying colours (turning up to an event filled with watch lovers wearing one of Patek’s quirky early 1960s pieces designed by Gilbert Albert, or Rolex’s Cellini Asymmetric “King Midas” Burgundy, would be pretty much an unsurpassable act of horological one-upmanship).

The new Ventura Edge Skeleton, from a brand known for marrying Swiss craftsmanship to a distinctly American aesthetic derring-do, is an audacious example of one of watchmaking’s quirkier sub-genres. The familiar DNA and shield-turned-sideways geometry of Richard Arbib’s 1957 original (worn, famously, by Elvis Presley in Blue Hawaii, with the Men in Black franchise also on its IMDB page) is there for all to see: but such a sci-fi-ish, futuristic interpretation makes mischief with the fourth dimension, just as its earliest progenitor did with the first three.

The new Hamilton Ventura Edge Skeleton is available in brushed steel and in black PVD. Both feature the in-house H-10-S automatic movement, visible through both the open-worked dial and the caseback.

The beating heart within this outlandish architectural spin on Hamilton’s most recognizable silhouette? The house’s very own H-10-S automatic, which has an 80-hour power reserve and a Nivachron balance spring making it more impervious to magnetism, temperature changes, and shock. The movement is visible through an open-worked dial that, according to the manufacture, is “inspired by “shattered forms”, itself visible via gradient mineral glass plate which flits between opacity and smokiness with a moody relish that has you feeling grateful for the legibility afforded by those skeletonized hands containing their fill of Super-LumiNova. If you find polychromatic gaiety applied with enamel a turn-off, this might just be the piece for you.

Its 51 x 47.1 mm case can be in brushed steel (£1,560) or black PVD (£1,660), with a black rubber strap the default option with both. Expect a flood of intrigued queries from the horologically savvy at social gatherings: and mouths agape, when you tell people how modest the price point for a watch of this ilk.

Author: Nick Scott

You can read more about the iconic Hamilton Ventura in our articles, The Allure of the Unconventional, Enter the Dragon, Watches on Celluloid, and The Shape of Time to Come.