The Italian VeriWatch Octopus 1973 is a diver’s watch with vintage design elements. This watch seeks to offer more than just a fashionable timepiece; it aims to tell a story as in today’s crowded watch market, and the product alone is not enough; it needs to have a narrative.
The “Veri” in VeriWatch is a diminutive of Saverio’s name, a friend of the brand’s founder, Giulio Capezzuto, that helped him to open his first watch shop and laboratory in the Italian city of Bari back in 1956. The VeriWatch Octopus, whose name is a tribute to the octopus, a symbol of the Adriatic Sea, is a skin diver watch that has its origins in the 1970s, a golden era for dive watches.
Introduced in Bari in 1973, it is one of the rare medical divers with a pulsometer scale in the world. To read the scale, you start counting heartbeats when the seconds hand reaches 12 o’clock, at the moment you count 30 heartbeats, you read the number indicated by the hand to get the heart rate.
Notably, VeriWatch has also had a fruitful collaboration with Squale, a very well-known case maker and watch brand. The new Octopus, presented this year by an Italian entrepreneur, Alessandro Leali, features a 316L stainless steel case with the typical design of 1970s skin divers, measuring 38mm in diameter and 12mm in thickness, just like the 1973 model.
The screw-down crown has a double O-ring to ensure water resistance up to 20 ATM. Unlike the historical model, the new Octopus has a screwed-in case back featuring two octopus tentacles in raised 3D relief with alternating sanded and polished sections.
The 2023’ Octopus is offered with or without a date complication. The dial, protected by a slightly domed sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating on the inside, is available in black or blue gradient colours for the date version, both featuring a pulsometer scale on an anodized blue aluminum ring. The no-date version, in addition to the broad arrow hour and minute hands instead of baton hands, can be choosen between a blue or white pulsometer scale.
For visibility in the dark, the watch uses a generous amount of SuperLuminova BGW9 grade A on the indices and hands which is essential for a watch guaranteed waterproof to 200 meters. As a true diver, the VeriWatch Octopus features a unidirectional 120-click rotating bezel in two-tone satin-finished aluminum with a dot at 12 o’clock.
The Octopus line is powered by the Swiss automatic Sellita SW200-1 and the movement is enhanced with an antishock Incabloc system. The watches comes with three custom straps: a comfortable Tropic strap, a Seventies-style Sport strap and a NATO strap made from recycled materials with 316L stainless steel buckle and keepers.
The packaging includes a customized tool for changing straps and a microfiber cloth. In conclusion, the attention to detail and the perceived quality of the VeriWatch Octopus is high and with its 38mm diameter and short lugs that follow the wrist’s profile, it’s very comfortable to wear throughout the day, also for slender wrists.
Both models retail at 1.050EUR including VAT, for the EU, while for the rest of the world, the price is 860EUR including VAT.
