When it comes to the watches coming from London-based Mr Jones, we have seen quite a variety of designs, mostly centered around interesting visual ideas and cues. Their latest, the Mr Jones Chatterbox, is certainly in that vein, with a variety of colorful characters decorating the dial. Oh, and telling the time.
The one big departure here on the Chatterbox, as compared to others that we have written about from the brand, is the conspicuous lack of a handset. Instead, they rely on a jumping hour complication from the ST1721 automatic movement. The hour indicator shows up in the mouth of the character on the lower half of the dial. As to the minutes, those appear just below that in an eyeball graphic. In short, this is very much a digital watch, albeit one without any sort of LCD.
While that is interesting in its own way, I think the design, and how it makes its way on to the watch, is really the bigger part of the story here. You can tell that this was the work of a professional illustrator (Fernando Volken Togni in this case). I cannot put my finger on how, exactly, but it definitely has that feel. It also feels sort of like a physchadelic wallpaper made of up interpretations of characters from children’s books. Neither good nor bad, just what it brought to mind for me.
How does this pattern make its way on to the watch? Simply put, it’s printed onto the the reverse side of the glass that tops the 37mm case. This means that each color in the design is another layer, and that required some very careful alignment to ensure everything came together properly. This sort of layering gives things a very distinctive look, much like, well, the multi-color illustrations you see in older books.
Whatever the dial evokes for you, the Mr Jones Chatterbox is definitely one of the more unique dials I have seen this year. As with some of their other lines, this one is limited edition, with only 100 pieces being offered (I’m sure whoever was printing those crystals is happy about that). That means that if you want one of the $260 watches, you will want to get one quickly, before they are all snapped up. Oh, and one more note – while it looks like the Chatterbox has two crowns, it only has a single one (on the left side) – that button on the right simply has the brand logo. It caught me off guard at first, but it just seems like it’s another quirk of the design to go along with the face of the watch. mrjoneswatches.com
Watch Overview
- Brand & Model: Mr Jones Chatterbox
- Price: $260
- Who we think it might be for: This is perfect for the fan (or perhaps collector) of multi-color illustrations
- Would I buy one for myself based on what I’ve seen?: While I am intrigued by the process of creating this one, it really is not something I would see myself wearing
- If I could make one design suggestion, it would be: Not sure here. Maybe some other window to display a kinetic portion driven by the seconds hand?
- What spoke to me the most about this watch: The look and feel of the illustration
Tech Specs from Mr Jones
- Case: PVD coated 316L stainless steel
- Mechanism: ST1721 20 jewel automatic mechanical movement
- Strap: black woven stainless steel
- Width (3 o’clock to 9 o’clock): 37mm
- Height (from lug to lug): 46mm
- Waterproof: 5ATM
