It would have been easy for Furlan Marri to simply rinse and repeat. Brands that have had similar fast starts, including brands that I like an awful lot, have recycled their big hits for longer than the three years Furlan Marri has been in existence. But they clearly had a plan all along, dropping new watches, both limited editions and regular production pieces, at sensible intervals that make it clear to observers that this is a real company making real things, and not some fly-by-night operation.
And oh yeah, they made a perpetual calendar as well. And not just a perpetual calendar – a secular perpetual calendar, a complication so rare it had many of us who have been around this stuff for years looking for clarification on exactly what it does. We wrote about it here, and I encourage you to read about it in detail, but the key thing to remember is that it’s the rare mechanical complication that does something you will likely not be alive to see. Is there a bigger watchmaking flex?
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This is all to say that their latest watch, the Disco Volante, arrives at a time when the brand seems to be hitting their stride. They are fully out of that initial “new brand” phase and have firmly established themselves in the watch community. When I first saw the Disco Volante, it was a brief meeting with the brand during Watches & Wonders week, when they were exhibiting at the Beau Rivage hotel. We also see them at our Windup events, which I think says a lot about both Furlan Marri, the impressive lineup of bands we’re able to curate for our own shows, and their wide reach.
The essence of the DIsco Volante is something many brands have played with before. The case shape, reminiscent of a UFO as imagined by Golden Age science fiction (“disco volante” is Italian for “flying saucer”) is seen frequently in Art Deco watches, with notable references produced by Audemars Piguet, Vacheron Constantin, Omega, and others. The idea of a circular, disc-like case without any visible lugs is one that I think appeals to many for its inherent symmetry and simplicity. It’s a case that’s literally reduced to the bare essentials.
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Furlan Marri has done something smart with their version of the Disco Volante, and that’s size it up for a modern consumer. This watch measures 38mm in diameter and is just a hair under 9mm tall. If you look at vintage Disco Volantes from almost any brand, you’ll find they tend to be quite a bit smaller, often in that 34-36m range.
If Furlan Marri had decided to stay true to the sizing of the vintage examples they’ve been inspired by (something they’ve done throughout their releases to this point, I’d argue), this watch would have been far too small for me to wear without it looking kind of ridiculous, and I think many others with wrists in that 7 inches and up range would feel similarly. As it stands, a 38mm watch (that’s also super thin) without lugs adding any additional visual or actual heft, feels small but appropriately so. As I wore it around for about a week, I found that it reminded me somewhat of wearing a vintage watch (not surprising) and that having a watch of this size on my wrist is just very pleasant. It might be the smallest wearing 38mm watch I can think of, which is a significant point in its favor.
I find myself talking about this a lot in reviews, but I seem to keep reviewing watches that are, at least according to conventional wisdom, a little small for me. What I want to say here, and what I always want to say, really, is that few things in life are as dull and brain rotting as conventional wisdom. I’m 6 feet tall and have a large wrist that sometimes causes the jeweler down the street to audibly wonder if he should even take a link out when I ask him to size a new bracelet for me. If you’ve been poisoned to think that the span of a watch simply must cross the entirety of the top of your wrist, a watch like this is not going to be your bag. But if you’re open minded, and understand that this is how watches looked on people for decades, you might be pleasantly surprised by how a watch like the Disco Volante can be worked into a rotation.
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