Farer Goes Medium with the New 36mm Three Hand Collection

It’s far too early in the year to call anything that’s happened so far in the watch world a “trend,” at least by any traditional dictionary definition of the word. In these early weeks of January, it’s just as likely that any example we might point to of releases that feel similar in some way or follow a pattern are merely coincidences. Still, our collective radar goes up when we see new watches begin to follow a certain format, and between a surprising release at last week’s LVMH watch week, a pleasantly diminutive GMT, and this new collection from Farer, we get the sense that it’s worth paying attention to smaller watches making their way onto the scene. 

The new 36mm Three Hand collection is a small selection of four watches that take familiar Farer design tropes and shrink them down into a case that sits squarely in “medium” territory. It’s an interesting move for Farer, as they’ve always made watches that are well proportioned, not overly large, and could fairly be described as unisex. Recent releases like an updated Stanhope and the AquaMatic collection have certainly reinforced this idea. But the new Three Hand collection seen here takes the idea to another level, and underscores the midcentury design inspiration that has always been at the heart of Farer’s watches. 

As is typical of Farer, they’ve launched the new Three Hand collection with four watches that showcase the wide range of colors the brand is skilled at working with. The Resolute is perhaps the most “Farer” of these new Farers, sporting a clean white dial with accents in two shades of blue and a blast of orange in the seconds hand. The Resolute Sorbet takes a similar approach but with a peach colored dial that is just on the other side of salmon. Both of the Resolute models feature applied Arabic numerals at each hour along with syringe hands that show up throughout the collection. 

The Erebus Midnight, according to Farer, is their stab at a more formal take on the Three Hand format, which seems like a natural choice given the new sizing. The dial is a high gloss midnight blue meant to provide maximum contrast to the polished and applied stick hour markers and hands. Arabics at 12 and 6 provide some visual interest and make the dial feel a bit more modern than it otherwise would.

Finally, the Discovery Red is this collection’s standout oddball. Farer likes to include at least one watch in these collections that is unapologetically bold, and the bright red dial of this variant keeps that longstanding tradition alive. Farer describes it as “cherry red,” which is an apt description, and the dial has some complexity that you might not see on a first look, with an inner section that breaks up the dial with a subtle textured finish.  

The 36mm wide case in these new watches measures 41.2mm from lug to lug and is just 10.4mm thick. While this is small by today’s standards, those proportions are in line with watches that were commonly worn everyday a generation or two ago without a second thought. It should make the 36mm Three Hand watches feel like actual vintage watches on the wrist, which will present an interesting dichotomy at times given that the dials feel quite contemporary. One of the things that makes Farer special though is the way they’re able to squeeze multiple influences and eras into a single design, so this is anything but surprising coming from them. 

All of the watches in the 36mm Three Hand collection run on the same movement found in their 39mm siblings, the La Joux-Perret G101, a Swiss automatic movement with a healthy power reserve of 68 hours. Pricing starts at $990 on a leather strap, and bumps up to $1,005 on an optional Milanese bracelet. Farer