SILHOUETTE

Echo/Neutra broke the rules with the Rivanera, and they got away with it

- text and photos by Zen Love

— In 2024, Italian microbrand Echo/Neutra had a breakout moment.

Pivoting from its hitherto tool-watch persona, it released a dress watch—one that also pivoted from the idea of what a dress watch could be and essentially anything seen before. The Rivanera took a classic style that normally represents the height of formality and did the impossible: Made it interesting, creative, and even fun.

We're talking about an archetypal silhouette, an elegant rectangle on the wrist, but executed in a completely unintuitive way: In matte titanium with hard angles. It’s simply not done! In the wrong hands, a combination of features like this could easily clash, but Echo/Neutra nailed it. One of the most talked-about microbrand watches of the year, it's also extremely thin, powered by a Swiss mechanical movement, which makes it relatively affordable.

Original as it is, however, it didn’t come out of thin air. Influencers and Instagrammers in the 2020s had already started to redefine ‘dressy’ watches and the way they could be worn. ‘Shaped’ (non-round), smaller, and generally vintage-y watches have been all the rage, and those fashionistas aren't pairing them with tuxes. Echo/Neutra was responding to this, as many others have.

How they did so, though, was unusual. Such watches are, almost by definition, polished and shiny, usually in weighty precious metals or at least steel. Titanium, on the other hand, is lightweight, harder than steel, and with a character seen as technical and sporty. So does it belong as the case of an elegant dress watch? Not by any conventional wisdom. And with a sandblasted finish? All the rules are broken at this point.