Italian Watches: Made in Italy is on the rise.

Posted by Aaade on September 21st, 2022

Italy is a country of saints, poets, navigators and watchmakers, judging by what they have done for watchmaking and how much Italian watches still manage to deliver. It should be remembered that Italians fake rolex uk (and Italian watches) have also contributed to the rescue of Swiss brands, as in the case of the Reverso by Jaeger – LeCoultre; they manage some of them, for example Eberhard & Co. and they have created icons, such as Royal Oak and Nautilus. Italian watch brands therefore boast a solid legacy.

After many articles dedicated to Swiss Made watches, the time has come to give space to Italian luxury watches Made in Italy, although they often adopt supply movements (Swiss or Japanese). When can we really talk about Made in Italy watches and Italian watchmakers? Made in Italy watch brands occupy all categories, from cheap watches to luxury watches, also including those that have Italian roots, but have now been acquired. Conversely, artisanal and medium-sized brands are constantly growing. Let's discover the Italian watch brands.

List of Italian watch brands and Made in Italy watch brands

A first symbolic ranking of Italian brands by decreasing average market price is the following:

Bulgarians
Panerai
Locman
U – Boat
Anonymous
Lorenz
Wyler Vetta
and I could go on. Excluding the first two (and Anonymous), which are best replica watches non-Italian owned, the others are all Italian watch brands. However, the Italian watch is a rapidly growing phenomenon. As I write this, the number of luxury watch brands and enthusiasts who, like many young Steve Jobs, build handcrafted Italian watches is still increasing.

Among the Italian watches it is therefore necessary to divide three groups of Italian watch brands: the Italian luxury mechanical watches, such as Panerai and Bulgari, which belong to the Richemont Group and LVMH, respectively, the luxury watch brands born in recent times, and among these the most successful business cases are undoubtedly the Italian Locman and U-Boat automatic watches and, as anticipated, the small and entry-level brands such as Lorenz, Wyler Vetta or niche ones.

Other Italian watch brands: niche Italian watch brands

There are also other brands of watches that are little known to the public, made in numbers by boutiques that offer very high construction quality such as the Ardito Group watch brands, or Ennebi, for https://www.replicawatches.cc/ example, real cases of Italian artisan watchmakers. On this occasion we focus on three examples of what I call the Tuscan school, the most prosperous and lively in terms of Italian watchmaking.

Locman watches: made in Italy that starts from the island of Elba to conquer international markets.
Locman was founded in 1986 on Elba Island. The headquarters are in Marina del Campo, on the sea, a position that rivals the most refined Swiss headquarters of haute horlogerie. Among the Italian watch brands it is undoubtedly one of the largest and most structured.

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The Locman watches offer is wide, it is a consolidated reality and for some years it has added some rather refined limited editions to the best sellers Stealth (recently updated) and Montecristo: the cases of the Locman Montecristo in a split-seconds chronograph version (an increasingly rare complication in watchmaking) and the Locman Montecristo Moon, equipped with a Lemania 1883 manual winding mechanical movement included in a limited series of 300 pieces, are emblematic (photo: igioielliconti.com).

I would have personally inserted this movement in a more classic case, but it does not detract from the validity of the experiment, which is decidedly fascinating. Furthermore, in the case of the Locman Montecristo Rattrapante, the watchmakers have developed the complication of the double chronograph. Locman laid the foundations to become a watchmaking factory by building in 2006 the SIO, an acronym for the Italian School of Watchmaking, which aims to train new watchmakers and update the service network. Locman has also been a partner of Ducati Motor for two years, with which it has created a dedicated collection of luxury watches, another important milestone.

Italian manufacture watches

The Locman watch brand has partnered with the historic OISA manufacture https://www.watchesukuk.com/ for the construction of a small series of handcrafted wristwatches equipped with a mechanical movement entirely made in Italy. It will be presented in the course of 2022. We will thus have watches 100% produced in Italy thanks to Italian watchmakers. Locman is confirmed as the leading Italian watch brand and the most structured among the made in Italy watchmakers.

Locman Montecristo OISA 1937

On the occasion of the 2022 edition of VO’Clock Privé, the Tuscan brand Locman and OISA 1937 joined forces to create the first made in Italy watch. Almost under the radar, it instead marks a fundamental step in the construction of an Italian identity in watchmaking which has resulted, up to now, mainly in products designed in Italy but equipped with mechanical movements of Swiss origin. If Locman and the model of the Montecristo collection, chosen for this operation, are well known to enthusiasts, the name OISA 1937 requires a moment of historical analysis which confirms a strong attitude of our workers and some visionary entrepreneurs.

We have not historically exported only very good designers, engineers and master watchmakers; we have also grown them "in-house" and we are pleased that a construction site has been reopened whose echo, we can bet, will be strong and vast. To newbies and to those who, like myself, were born in the seventies, the OISA 1937 brand said little so far. It was a visionary entrepreneur, born Domenico Morezzi, who founded the OISA laboratory, originally based in Viale Regina Margherita in Milan. OISA production peaked at 10,000 movements on days of maximum splendor, before succumbing to the tsunami generated by the spread of quartz movements.

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The then OISA laboratory did not overcome the Japanese shock wave and ended all activities in 1978. The current scenario is different and the conditions have been recreated to open a modern laboratory that preserves the philosophy of the original. After all, Italy has among its strengths the boutique approach, I would say "sartorial" to luxury consumer items, from mechanics to design and the newborn OISA 1937 perfectly interprets these needs, and has the necessary pedigree.

The relaunch obviously involves the creation of a new caliber; adds romance and relevance that the project is overseen by the latest generation of the Morezzi family; Carlo Boggio Ferraris, grandson of the founder, laid the foundations of the new project in 2017 and the result is a manually wound 3.5 Hz movement of remarkable workmanship, finished entirely by hand: Côtes de Genève on the (five) bridges and perlage on the platen. It is a 13-line caliber with variable inertia balance wheel, equipped with a Kif shockproof system, clearly visible in the photos.

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For the occasion, Locman chose a limited edition version of the Montecristo, modern with the case with integrated lugs and in my opinion not very much in line with the characteristics and finish of the caliber. Probably, the idea was to create a bridge between the past and the future, but I would have opted for a more classic case than that of a Montecristo, at its debut, and a diameter of less than 42 millimeters. However, the project is fascinating and does not represent an isolated experiment but the beginning of a beautiful story as well as the definitive relaunch of made in Italy luxury watchmaking, which went through several unsuccessful attempts to position itself higher. Never before has it laid the foundations on very solid foundations.