Do Not Baby Engineered Garments' First Collaborative Watch
Engineered Garments may be crazy collaborative but it has never partnered with a watch company to create its own timepiece... until now. Well, kinda. But Engineered Garments x Hamilton is still a big deal.
I'm discarding EG's BEAMS Boy x Timex collab as a one-off spurred by longtime partner BEAMS Boy, which leaves Hamilton as EG's first proper watch collaborator. And it's a fitting partnership, to be sure.
Hamilton is a humbly long-running watchmaker founded in the late 19th century, currently operated by The Swatch Group but still respected for its no-nonsense craft and reasonable prices.
That about as close as a timepiece company could get to Engineered Garments, the 25-year-old workwear-inclined clothing line that specializes in garments of an especially thoughtful nature.
And, like EG's unpretentious blazers and cotton twill cargo pants, the EG x Hamilton Khaki Field Titanium watch is meant to be worn. As always, it was designed to the specifications of EG founder and creative director Daiki Suzuki.
In a press release, Suzuki described the timepiece as "both contemporary and timeless, embodying the essence of Hamilton Khaki x Engineered Garments," pointing to the "minimalist" dial as key to this conceit.
It "[eliminates] any unnecessary elements," which in a way mirrors EG's uncomplicated design ethos.
This thing is meant to be worn. It's tough, light, and relatively small with a 36mm case. As special as it may be — and it is special, with only 1,999 pieces ever made (in homage to EG's year of founding, 1999) — the EG x Hamilton watch begs to be beaten into a condition comparable to classic field watches.
Like with EG's clothes, this thing was designed for adventure and is destined to only get better with age.
