Filippo Loreti Venice Moonphase Review – Luxury or For Losers?
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To be honest, following my research for the original Filippo Loreti blog post, I had doubts that this would ever turn up. Admittedly, this is still a far cry from the advertised 5-11 business day delivery that I paid the additional fee for. I guess there’s a chance they discovered the pseudonym we used to place the order and sent it due to our online presence; we’ll probably never know for sure. Either way, now that it’s here, I thought we’d take a closer look at the watch and see how it stacks up against the crazy claims present in their marketing campaigns.
After all, in this box should be an Italian luxury watch, equivalent to other watch brands at 8 to 16x the price of this. In essence, if those claims are accurate, this shouldn’t be far off the likes of a brand like Tudor when it comes to fit and finish.
Watch Packaging
I found a few interesting things during the unboxing. On the outer bag, the package was shipped from Lithuania as I anticipated, not Italy. As I discovered last time, these watches are not manufactured in Italy, instead, they’re made in China and the brand has no connection to Italy whatsoever, despite the marketing; they’re based out of Lithuania instead.
Delivery
Additionally, remember when I said I ordered in mid-September? Well, from the looks of this package, my order wasn’t dealt with until November 25th. Over two months later. Perhaps this is because they have to reach some sort of minimum order quantity before the manufacturer will produce them. However, that’s no excuse, as customers are not made aware of this delay when purchasing.
Also, the internal box had grease marks and dirt all over it and a dent in the corner. The outer packaging was sealed, so this is the state in which it must have left the factory. Does this leave a luxury first impression? I think not.
While the watch was rather loose inside, it does appear damage-free; so I guess the box has technically done its job.
Watch Claims
Let’s go through exactly how these watches are pitched, then we’ll compare the claims to the product I have in front of me.
In their adverts and on their Kickstarter they claim world-class craftsmanship, luxury quality and a final product equivalent to other watches that cost up to 5 figures.
Let’s return to the real world for a second. This watch features stainless steel construction and a flat sapphire crystal; which is decent enough. However, when you look closer, you can quickly tell it’s far from a 10 grand piece of luxury craftsmanship.
Movement
First up, the watch uses a basic Miyota 6P00 quartz movement. This is a one tick per second battery-powered movement that you can grab for around a tenner individually. A big company can probably obtain these for a fraction of that when ordered en masse. A basic movement like this rarely would make its way into watches at £500, let alone multiple times that. While this movement will still offer good accuracy, it won’t be as accurate as those included in most luxury-level quartz watches and lacks the basic craftsmanship found in other mechanical watches for half the price of this one.
To say that these watches all offer ‘world-class craftsmanship’ is absurd from the inclusion of this movement alone. You can nab this movement in watches costing under £50. Unlike the marketing suggests, moon phases aren’t just found in watches costing 5 times this one. You can easily grab these for pennies on AliExpress and even Amazon.
Watch Construction
Luckily, the quartz movement does allow the case of this model to be quite thin, at a sleek 8.7mm. While I like the colourway and the finishing is satisfactory. It’s satisfactory for a near-£200 watch that is. Not for a watch that should be costing 5 figures. In fact, I think this Casio MDV-106 has comparable, if not better finishing than the Filippo Loreti; yet this watch often retails for under $50 in the United States.
There are plenty of YouTube channels that specialise in luxury watches and have great b-roll shots of them too. You can see from a handful of examples that the level of machining and precision is a world away from this Filippo Loreti. While it doesn’t look bad it’s just not at that level whatsoever.
To my surprise, I found no manufacturing faults with the watch and it seems to be fully functional. I’ve got to give credit where it’s due and I’ve seen sloppy QC issues on other watches at similar prices, yet this unit doesn’t have any.
In that vein, let’s run through my overall thoughts on the watch; other than the fact it isn’t luxury.
Dimensions
First up, it’s pretty comfortable on-wrist. It doesn’t move about much and is fairly lightweight. Despite being rather thin and having a 40mm width, it still doesn’t fit my wrist due to the fairly long 48mm lug to lug size. I’d have preferred these to be shorter as in their current state, they protrude way past the spring bars and seem sharp enough to catch and tug on long-sleeved clothing. If you have small wrists, these will stick out rather noticeably too.
Design
The crown is easy to grip and operate and it features some sort of star symbol on it. As far as I know, this isn’t the Filippo Loreti logo, so it appears to be some sort of artistic choice.
The case rear has been rather intricately decorated with an engraving of the Basilica di San Marco, which would look right at home if it were on an Italian-made watch. It’s held in place by four screws, which can seal the watch to an advertised 5bar water resistance; which is reasonable for the cost and style of the piece.
While not horrendous, the buckle doesn’t fit the slick design language found in the rest of the watch. This widens towards the tip, leaving a bulky shape that looks like it’s been taken from another gold watch. It doesn’t feature any sort of branding, which is typically found on most watch brands. This is likely done in the name of ‘minimalism’ or for simply cutting costs. I’ll let you decide which.
Watch Dial
Overall, I think the dial is quite attractive. It’s too flashy for my taste, but I just ordered the watch they feature on all the adverts, so I didn’t have much choice. At a distance, the raised chapter ring gives the watch somewhat of a unique look and the blue sunburst effect is rather striking. I think the handset is a good choice too, with the faceted alpha hands showcasing a split brushed-polished design that appears to have been executed to a high standard, considering the cost of the watch.
Unfortunately, the rest of the watch doesn’t hold up on a macro level. The hour markers look flat and cheap, the subdials aren’t cut very precisely and the logo is simply stamped onto the surface. The design language is cohesive and I have seen much worse elsewhere. That being said, up-close it truly does look like a £40-£50 watch that you could pick up from AliExpress and it is a world away from the level of detailing that you’d find on any sort of luxury timepiece.
Strap
The ‘handcrafted Italian leather’ strap is probably the best part of the watch. This feels decent and durable, so should last you rather well. If you want another though, you’re talking an additional £39; which they are nowhere near worth. Is it suitable for a £180 watch? Yeah, it’s better than most. Is it as luxury and top-tier as the marketing suggest? No.
Final Thoughts
As a whole, the watch is almost exactly what I was expecting. A basic watch that is half-decent, but has been overhyped to the point that it will likely only disappoint you. It’s not what was promised in the marketing. That’s if you end up receiving it, which is unlikely in itself.
Has any money saved from ‘cutting out the middleman’ been used to give you a better product for less money? I’m not even seeing that, let alone a product worth multiple times the retail price. I’ve seen worse from other brands, that’s for certain; however, it’s everything that surrounds the brand which has caused me to have such distaste.
