Only Watch is Upon Us Once Again, This Year Featuring Furlan Marri and the Debut of their Impressive Perpetual Calendar

Only Watch, the biennial charity auction that finds an increasingly diverse set of brands offering one-off watches to the highest bidder, is back this year, and we’re starting to get word of the sale’s participants and the watches they’ll have on offer. You might recall that in 2021, we saw Baltic participate for the first time, which, in our opinion, not only elevated their status considerably, but the entire microbrand scene as well. For those of us who have followed and supported small, enthusiast driven brands for years, there was a certain amount of gratification in seeing one of our favorites getting worldwide, mainstream attention alongside the likes of Tudor and Patek Philippe. It was even better when we saw that Only Watch didn’t fundamentally change what Baltic stands for as a brand – they still make reasonably priced and attractive watches for hardcore collector and enthusiast types. This year’s slate of Only Watch participants features another small brand that we’ve been paying very close attention to since they first came on the scene just two years ago. Furlan Marri’s Only Watch debut caps what can only be described as a meteoric rise for the brand, and the somewhat mind blowing watch they’ve unveiled is genuinely unexpected and exciting. 

Before we get into the weeds on the new Furlan Marri perpetual calendar – yes, their perpetual calendar – let’s back up a minute, because it’s important to understand the short history of the brand to see just how impressive this watch is. Launched in 2021 via a Kickstarter campaign, the brand made their name with an excellent meca-quartz chronograph, taking aesthetic inspiration from the classic Patek Philippe 1463, a watch that many aficionados might claim is the single best looking watch ever made. The attention to detail and level of execution on that debut release caught the attention of the entire industry, and Furlan Marri’s follow up, a gorgeous sector dial drawing on similar design cues with great finishing and a top shelf La Joux-Perret automatic movement upped the ante once again. In the background, Furlan Marri has been laying the groundwork for the future, testing assembly operations in Geneva, and filing patent applications. Not bad for a Kickstarter brand. 

The perpetual calendar for Only Watch is the product of a collaboration between the Furlan Marri team and watchmakers Dominique Renaud and Julien Tixier. They sought not just to create a new perpetual calendar, but a simplified and modular version of the complication. What’s more, this particular flavor of perpetual calendar is quite rare, and is actually what’s known as a secular perpetual calendar, tracking what’s known as a secular year, which is equal to 100 years. The movement still accounts for leap years as any perpetual calendar would, but it also has an indication tied to the watch’s central hand that rotates over the course of a century. The brand says the watch only requires a single adjustment every 400 years. 

Furlan Marri and their partners have developed an ingenious mechanism that makes something that is incredibly complex deceptively simple. The goal with this movement was to prioritize reliability and the user experience. A minimum of components are used in the movement, with a simplified modular construction that places the secular modular with its century spanning timespan atop the perpetual calendar mechanism. A large rocker used at the peripheral of the movement, rather than at the center as you’d find on a traditional perpetual calendar, allows for the presentation of information in a logical and easy to understand way, while gaining mechanical efficiencies as well. 

Unlike many perpetual calendars, this one can be adjusted freely without fear of “breaking” the movement. Rather than using push-button correctors to make date and day of the week adjustments, Furlan Marri’s watch uses a ring that can be accessed from the 6:00 position on the case. A turn to the right adjusts the date, and a turn to the left adjusts the day of the week. The crown is used to adjust hours and minutes in the traditional way, and the corrector mechanism also allows for a “reset” that takes it back to the starting position.

As you’d expect from a perpetual calendar that has been streamlined in key ways, Furlan Marri’s watch has a simple and easy to read dial. Subdials at 9:00 and 3:00 track days of the week and the date, respectively, while the month is read via a hand pointing to an outer ring. That central hand also acts as the leap year indicator with a rotating Maltese cross that completes a rotation every four years. 

The case is 39mm and has been crafted from rhodium plated silver, and measures just 11.3mm thick. The dial is made from titanium which has been oxidized to give it its distinctive blue color. Much of the watch has been finished to a very high degree, including engraved indicators on the dial and hand finishing on the movement completed by Julien Tixier himself. Even the bracelet, a Milanese mesh design in silver, has been entirely made by hand, making it an impressive piece of jewelry in its own right. 

This is obviously a big and bold step by Furlan Marri. It would have been easy for them to coast on their Kickstarter success by continuing to release watches made in a similar fashion at a comparable price point, but they clearly have loftier goals in mind, as evidenced by their patent on the secular calendar module, and the partnerships that they’ve sought out with world class watchmakers like Tixier and Renaud. We were already keenly interested in Furlan Marri’s future, and the types of projects they would take on, but the unveiling of a perpetual calendar makes following their progress all the more exciting. Furlan Marri