The Swatch Group has just opened its first Hamilton Watch store in the US. It is located in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where the brand began operations in 1892. It’s a welcome homecoming as many locals grew up as members of the extended Hamilton Watch Company family until it closed its operations. factory here in 1969.

Since then, Hamilton watches have been manufactured in Switzerland, and the brand was acquired by the company that later became the Swatch Group in 1974.

Hamilton sits alongside legacy brands such as Omega, Longines, Tissot, Rado, Breguet and Harry Winston in the Swatch Group’s $9.1 billion (CHF7.9 billion) portfolio in its mid-price range, that is, affordable luxury.

Lancaster is located more than an hour from Philadelphia and is home to more than half a million county residents, so it’s hardly a retail hotbed, although the F. W. Woolworth Company began operations there in 1879, and it was here that Milton Hershey opened his company. for the production of caramel candies, which eventually became the chocolate candy manufacturing center it is today in 1886.

However, Lancaster County is a popular tourist destination, receiving approximately 10 million visitors annually. It’s a virtual time machine where people can experience 19th-century America led by Amish and Mennonites on horseback and buggies.

Challenging the traditional retail rule of “Location, Location, Location,” Hamilton Watch instead chose Lancaster for its first U.S. store, adhering to the mantra “Heritage, Heritage, Legacy.”

“If it was about being a shopping destination for a brand, you wouldn’t start in Lancaster. You would start in New York, Los Angeles or another big city,” Hamilton CEO Vivian Stauffer told me. “But that’s the beauty of going back to the roots of this iconic American brand.”

Legacy brand

The return of the Hamilton Watch is all about heritage—no luxury brand should be without it—and the Hamilton brand is filled with that heritage. In its early days, the Hamilton Watch became the official “Railroad Precision Watch” and as the aviation industry developed, it became the watch of choice for pilots. Hamilton joined the U.S. Armed Forces during World War II to keep the Army running on time.

And Hamilton watches have long been a staple for Hollywood filmmakers, appearing in more than 500 films and television shows. The distinctive triangular shaped Ventura was Elvis Presley’s favorite watch, which he wore in Blue Hawaii. Men in Black stars wore it too.

Hamilton was the watch of choice for futuristic 2001: A Space Odyssey And Interstellar movies. And going retro, this is the watch that Harrison Ford wore in the latest installment of the Indiana Jones franchise. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Doom.

Outdated location

Swiss-born Stauffer began his career with the Swatch Group in 2002 and gradually climbed the corporate ladder until he was appointed CEO of Hamilton in 2020.

His first overseas trip since the easing of pandemic travel restrictions was to Lancaster to learn about the brand’s history and visit the nearby National Watch Museum, which houses the Hamilton Watch Company archives.

He also met with local jewelry retailer Brent L. Miller Jewelers & Goldsmiths, one of Hamilton’s leading retail partners, which owns the historic Bowman Technical School building, where horology was taught from the late 19th century until its closure just over a century ago. Later.

It is now home to a Hamilton Watch store, many of the original historic fixtures have been restored and are intact.

“It all came together pretty quickly,” Ryan Miller, son of founder Brent L. Miller and now the company’s president, told local LNP newspaper. “We have been working with Hamilton for many years and have a strong relationship. They are interested in Lancaster and that interest has continued to grow in recent years and has led to this.”

On the Hamilton corporate side, Stauffer said the match was destined to happen. “Nothing happened by chance. We are an American brand and people have a very strong emotional attachment to it. Our American customers are very proud of what we have done in the past, and they deserve us to give something back to them too.”

Building on Legacy

The Hamilton Watch brand has the wind at its back as it digs into its storied history to move the brand forward. Stauffer explained that each of the 16 watch and jewelry brands in the Swatch Group portfolio is responsible for creating its own identity in its price segment.

His main responsibility is to turn Hamilton’s legacy into dollars, but the brand has a fairly quick following. For example, Hamilton was not mentioned in its latest earnings call.

Hamilton shares a mid-range with Balmain, Certina, Mido and Tissot, a step above the popular basic range of Swatch and Flik Flak.

Above the Hamilton midrange is the High Range with Longines, Rado and Union Glashütte, and above that are the Prestige and Luxury Range, led by Blancpain, Breguet, Glashütte Original, Harry Winston, Jaquet Droz, Léon Hatot and Omega.

Swatch Group doesn’t report revenue by brand or price segment, but it had a strong fiscal 2023, with watch and jewelry shares up 5.6%.

However, revenue fell 14% in the first half of 2024 due to a sharp drop in demand for luxury goods in China. On the other hand, the Swatch brand saw growth of 10% there as Chinese consumers returned to its more affordable offerings.

For Hamilton, the US is its largest market, and so far it has only been distributed through about 400 US retail partners, including jewelers and department stores. However, Hamilton has flagship stores in Switzerland, Japan and Hong Kong.

“It’s not all about making money,” Stauffer humbly concluded. “It’s important for a brand to be truly authentic and that’s what being in Lancaster is all about. The emotion around Hamilton really touched me in 2020 when I was able to be here, and I think we can learn a lot about that emotion and the brand by being here.”

Full disclosure: My family has lived in the farm fields of Lancaster County since 1992. If you come here, be sure to pronounce this word correctly. It’s “LANC-aster” with the accent on the first syllable, not “Lan-CAST-er” as outsiders tend to say. And they are “A-Mishi”, not “A-Mishi”.