Elvis Presley famously wore a Hamilton Ventura, touted as the world’s first electric watch upon its release in 1957, in the 1961 film Blue Hawaii. The now-iconic watch’s maker has capitalized on its connection to the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll ever since, and launched a modern interpretation, called Elvis80, in 2015, the year of the late music icon’s 80th birthday. In 2017, the 60th anniversary of the Ventura’s debut, Hamilton added an avant-garde skeletonized version of the Elvis80; the newest iteration on that model, launching this year, adds a retro “electric pulse” to its curved triangular case and openworked architecture.

The Hamilton Ventura Elvis80 Skeleton Automatic reinterprets the classic Ventura design codes with its curving triangular case, measuring a stately 42.5 mm x 44.6 mm in dimension and 12.3 mm thick and offered in two distinct executions: stainless steel with rose-gold-colored PVD coating and steel with black PVD coating. The steeply sloped sapphire crystal has a nonreflective coating, and the case is water resistant to 50 meters.
The dials are similar to the one on the original Elvis80 Skeleton, with luminous-coated sword hands and peripheral hour markers, but with an added vintage-inspired flourish: a zigzagging “electric pulse” across their center line, similar to the one found on the original Ventura from the 1950s that found its way to Elvis’s wrist. The hands and “pul...