Rather handsome, I enjoy how this new piece from Ferragamo mixes sport and sophistication. The mainstay piece for Ferragamo timepieces is the F-80 watch collection. It is a very impressive design that I think has been dismissed by a lot of serious watch guys. This new Ferragamo model is the 1898 Moonphase Chronograph with a good look and pitifully underwhelming name.
Do I need to go on with another rant on how the watch industry needs to stop naming their own watches? There are literally only a handful of brands that know properly title and market their watches. With such cleverness in design, how is there so little effort put into simple things like words. Ferragamo for example is a serious fashion industry name – really into image and classiness, and all that good stuff that sells clothing. How is it that with their talent and the serious machine that is Timex, no one is on “good watch name duty?”
OK, little tangent here. Say you are wearing your new timepiece acquisition and really proud of it and strutting around. Someone notices it and remarks, “hey, that is a cool watch. What is it?” Do brands really want you responding with “oh you like that? This here is the new Chronograph Three Counter Date Moon 45 1941 With Black Dial… watch. And it is all mine.” Think that sounds absurd? I have literally come across a series of watches with naming schemes just like that. If you design a watch with a personality give it a name with at least some personality.
In a 44mm wide steel case the 1898 Moonphase Chronograph (that in no way shape or form reminds me of 1898) has an IP (ion plated) applied rose gold and black case. I really wish that it was at least PVD or plated gold and a black ceramic bezel. The Ferragamo F-80 watches use ceramic bezels, why not here? In a watch costing under $500 I will usually be OK with IP color application, but when you stick in a movement such as this, you know the price is gonna be $3,000 at the minimum.
The wide lugs and black section as the bottom of the case looks interesting. Overall, I like the watch design a lot. Even the dial has some interesting features with a lower section that looks to be on a different plane and has a vertical textured silvered decoration opposed to the black of the rest of the dial. Further, I am always a big fan of mixing rose gold and black.
The hands are strong and actually skeletonized hands that I will stand behind. Integration of the Swiss ETA Valjoux 7751 movement is extremely clever. I always like to mention how this is a very difficult movement to design around due to the emptiness on the right side of the dial. What Ferragamo did was create a visual heaviness at the bottom of the dial with the silvered area around the moon phase indicator. What this does is pretty much make you forget that the left side of the dial is more cluttered and the right. Nice work right?
Always a great value, the 7751 is built on the 7750 and adds an annual calendar, synced 24 hour hand and moon phase indicator. You can see the movement through the sapphire caseback and Ferragamo has a custom rotor in the mix as well. Not sure about price, but I do know that Ferragamo will offer the 1898 Moonphase Chronograph as a limited edition of just 150 pieces.
See Ferragamo watches on eBay here.
[phpbay]ferragamo, num, “14324”, “”[/phpbay]