THE JOURNAL
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Double Time: Five Takes On The GMT Watch
Words by Mr Chris Hall
3 October 2022
You cannot be in two places at once, as any parent of young children or overworked entrepreneur will attest. With the right watch, however, you can keep your head in two time zones without adding mental arithmetic, no matter how basic, to your already packed life. We’ve picked out five timepieces with dual-time (or better) functionality. Whatever the nature of your international plate-spinning, one of these will do the job.
01.
Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Tribute Duoface
Tracking two time zones is a neat and natural exploitation of the Reverso’s party trick. You don’t have to keep all the info on one dial when you can simply step off a plane, flip the watch over and – click – you’re up to speed. How satisfying.
02.
Hermès Timepieces Slim d’Hermès GMT
The Slim d’Hermès GMT – a thin, dressy slice of platinum with a smoky, shady dial and funky, Scandi-adjacent typography – is not necessarily for someone monitoring matters on another continent with military precision. It’s more of a “it’s always negroni hour somewhere in the world” kind of vibe. Cheers to that, we say.
03.
Panerai Luminor GMT
This is much more the classic dual-time proposition. A third central hand, distinguished by its arrowhead, marks the hours back home while you’re on the move (the second hand moves politely to a nine o’clock subdial to carry on its business). The titanium and carbon case is suitably light and strong for more adventurous travel.
04.
Montblanc 1858 Geosphere 0 Oxygen
Talking of adventure, Montblanc’s latest 1858 has a zero-oxygen dial. This is intended to maintain absolute legibility at high altitude (where other watches might fog up). There is a second time zone indicator at nine, but the eyes are drawn to the eponymous geospheres, two visualisations of the northern and southern hemispheres, which give the watch full world-time functionality.
05.
Ressence Type 2
The Ressence Type 2 fuses traditional mechanics with smartphone technology. Once synced up, it will automatically adjust time zones as you travel, which saves you fiddling around as you wait in the queue for passport control. It’s solar powered, can be operated by tapping the crystal and even has a sleep function.
