Hamilton Khaki “Jimmy Olsen”

The Hamilton Khaki Field Mechanical, ref. H69439531: the 38mm hand-wound field watch with Terra-coloured PVD case and NATO strap, housing the exclusively developed H-50 calibre with an 80-hour power reserve, a faithful recreation of the original 1960s field watch that itself descended from the American military watches Hamilton supplied through two World Wars, worn by Skyler Gisondo as Jimmy Olsen in James Gunn’s Superman (2025), the inaugural production of DC Studios and the film that begins the DC Universe’s new continuity.

James Gunn’s Superman (2025) opened on July 11, 2025, as the first film produced by DC Studios under the creative direction that Gunn and Peter Safran had been appointed to establish in October 2022. It stars David Corenswet as Clark Kent and Superman and Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane, with Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor and Skyler Gisondo as Jimmy Olsen, the Daily Planet photographer who has been a fixture of the Superman mythology since his introduction in the radio serial The Adventures of Superman in 1940 and his first appearance in the comics in Superman No. 13 in 1941.

Jimmy Olsen is the character who most consistently occupies the position adjacent to greatness without possessing it himself: the young man next to the reporter who matters, next to the woman who matters, next to the alien in the cape who matters most of all. He is cheerful, resourceful, occasionally heroic, and perpetually aware that he is not the protagonist of his own story. The watch on his wrist is the Hamilton Khaki Field Mechanical ref. H69439531, the black-dial, Terra-coloured PVD case variant on a NATO strap, confirmed directly by Hamilton’s official product page, which describes the watch as “Featured in Superman: Legacy (2025). Worn by Jimmy Olsen, played by Skyler Gisondo.”

The Khaki Field on a NATO strap on the wrist of a newspaper photographer in James Gunn’s Metropolis is the costume logic of a character who is practical, mobile, and in possession of a good watch without making any particular statement about being in possession of a good watch. The watch is right for the job.

More on the film: imdb.com/title/tt5950044 and on the watch: hamiltonwatch.com/en-int/h69439531-khaki-field.html

From Lancaster to the Western Front

The Hamilton Watch Company was founded in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 1892, through the merger of the Keystone Standard Watch Company and the Aurora Watch Company. The name honoured James Hamilton, the original owner of the land on which Lancaster was built. From its earliest years the company’s identity was defined by precision in demanding environments: Hamilton watches were supplied to more than half of the engineers and conductors on the American railroad network, where the consequences of inaccurate timekeeping were measured in collisions rather than missed appointments. The 1891 Kipton, Ohio railroad crash, in which two trains met head-on because an engineer’s watch had stopped for four minutes, had concentrated the railroad industry’s attention on horological reliability in a way that no marketing effort could have achieved.

In 1914 Hamilton became a military contractor, supplying wristwatches to American forces in the First World War. The shift from the pocket watch to the wristwatch that combat conditions made necessary, since a soldier who needs to check the time while carrying a rifle cannot reach into a pocket, established the functional case for the wristwatch as the successor to the pocket watch across the civilian market as well. The soldiers who came home from France with watches on their wrists had learned something about the utility of the form that they did not forget.

In the Second World War Hamilton’s military production was extensive. The company supplied the A-11 field watch under government specification alongside Waltham and Elgin, producing the clean, legible, manually-wound instrument that set the template for the military field watch aesthetic that the Khaki Field continues today. Hamilton also supplied marine chronometers and aviation instruments, redirecting nearly its entire manufacturing capacity to military requirements. By the war’s end, Hamilton had produced approximately one million military watches.

The Khaki Field: Seventy Years of the Same Idea

The Hamilton Khaki Field collection’s direct lineage to the military watches of the 1940s and 1960s is not metaphorical. The visual DNA of the H69439531 traces through the GG-W-113 pilot’s watches Hamilton produced for the US military from 1967 through the late 1980s and through the earlier A-11 specification watches of the Second World War, and before that through the trench watches of 1914. The dial architecture, large Arabic numerals, high-contrast legibility, luminous markers and hands, the absence of decorative elements that serve no timekeeping function, is the same architecture that the military specification demanded across seven decades because it worked.

The H69439531 is the 38mm variant of the Khaki Field Mechanical, the smallest case size in the line and the one most closely proportioned to the original military references that the collection descends from. The case material is stainless steel with a Terra-coloured PVD treatment, a warm brown-khaki tone that is exclusive to this variant and that the Italian retailer Gioielleria Rosaspina describes as perfectly complementing Hamilton’s military heritage. The dial is black with white Arabic numerals and triangular indices carrying radium-coloured Super-LumiNova, a luminescent reference to the radium lume that the original military watches used before the radioactive material’s health risks were understood and alternatives developed.

The movement is the Hamilton H-50, an exclusively developed hand-winding calibre with an 80-hour power reserve. Eighty hours is three days and eight hours, sufficient to carry a watch through a long weekend without winding and retain accuracy at the start of the following week. The H-50 is available with and without a date function; the H69439531 is the time-only variant, consistent with the military field watch tradition of maximum legibility with minimum complication. The strap is a NATO, the nylon webbing design that the British Ministry of Defence standardised in 1973 as a replacement for the issued leather strap, in a configuration that threads through the spring bar attachments so that the watch remains on the wrist if a spring bar fails.

Hamilton and the Screen: A Relationship Built on American Identity

Hamilton’s relationship with cinema is among the most sustained of any watch brand’s, built not on a single franchise partnership but on a consistent alignment between the brand’s American industrial heritage and the films that explore American identity, ambition, and technical achievement.

The Ventura appeared in Blue Hawaii (1961), where Elvis Presley wore its electrically-powered futuristic triangular case. The Men in Black franchise used Hamilton watches from the original 1997 film onward, with Will Smith’s Jay wearing a variety of Hamilton models across the three films. Stanley Kubrick specified Hamilton for 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), placing the brand in a vision of American technological destiny that remains the most ambitious science fiction film ever produced. Christopher Nolan used Hamilton for Interstellar (2014), creating the “Murph” watch, a Khaki Field variant around which the film’s time paradox turns and which Hamilton subsequently produced as a limited edition. For Oppenheimer (2023), Hamilton supplied period-correct vintage models through collaboration with collector Derek Dier, the same consultant who supplied the Tudor Oyster-Prince Tuxedo for Mad Men.

The Superman (2025) partnership continues this lineage in a specific way. Hamilton supplied the Bulova Hack to White House Down through the American military watch tradition; it supplied the Hamilton Khaki Field to the Gunn Superman through the same tradition. Jimmy Olsen’s watch is not an exotic complication or a luxury statement. It is the watch that American soldiers carried through the twentieth century, placed on the wrist of a character who occupies the position of the reliable, useful, cheerful presence that keeps the more heroic figures around him functioning. The Khaki Field on Olsen’s wrist is, in this reading, the most precisely characterising watch choice available to the costume department: a watch whose identity is built on dependability and service, on the wrist of the character whose identity is built on exactly those qualities.

Technical note: Hamilton Khaki Field Mechanical, ref. H69439531. Stainless steel case with exclusive Terra-coloured PVD treatment, 38mm diameter. Fixed bezel. Black dial with white Arabic numerals and triangular indices, radium-coloured Super-LumiNova on markers and hands. Three hands, no date. Hamilton H-50 calibre, hand-wound, 80-hour power reserve, exclusively developed for Hamilton hand-winding watches. Available with and without date function; H69439531 is the time-only variant. Khaki NATO strap, 20mm lug width. Scratch-resistant sapphire crystal. Water resistance 50 metres. Hamilton Watch Company founded Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1892. Military watch supplier to US forces from 1914 through the Cold War era; A-11 field watch producer in Second World War alongside Waltham and Elgin; GG-W-113 pilot watch producer 1967 to late 1980s. Hamilton acquired by Buren Watch Company 1966; Lancaster manufacturing ended 1969; acquired by Swatch Group 1974; current Swiss production. Hamilton is the official watch of DC Studios. Featured in Superman (2025), directed by James Gunn, as “Featured in Superman: Legacy (2025)” on Hamilton’s official product page. Worn by Skyler Gisondo as Jimmy Olsen.

Thanks to an ICONICHOURS.com user for this identification… but next time please remeber to sign the form with your name 🙂