Today we are gonna look at a company that I wanted to review for years. About 4 years ago when I started to write reviews I discovered them and at first, they were making the same design watches, but with plastic case and bracelet, but after some years they started to make them in stainless steel like we know this brand now. About a month ago people from their marketing wrote to me if I wanted to review one of their pieces and I of course instantly agreed.

The model I chose is the Skeleton in Rose Gold colour, but they also have it in different colour and with bracelets or rubber straps. They also have automatic ones without the skeleton dial, but this one really stood out to me! The Skeleton came in a very nice small box, it is nothing special, but great looking! Inside you will find a watch and some papers (mine didn’t come with papers as it was just a review sample). The first impressions were wow, the photos just don’t do justice for this model and colour. In real life, it looks stunning and surprisingly light for it being a stainless steel watch with a stainless steel bracelet. Also, I noticed that there isn’t a lot of writings on the watch, just the logo and “Skeleton” on the front of the watch, and I like it as you take in notice the design more. And when it comes to design we have to admit, it looks like AP Royal Oak, but more squarish. I think that isn’t a bad thing, many will disagree as I know some of my readers don’t like homages, but I think they are cool and especially for people who don’t have so much money, but they want to experience something similar without buying a fake watch.

The case of the Skeleton is made of 316L stainless steel. The case is very well manufactured with nice lines and angles. The case is covered in Rose gold colour coating which seems pretty durable. Pretty much all watches with coatings (black, gold, rose gold or any other colour) are good if they are made in the last 10 years as the technology and thickness at which it is applied has been moving up and they are much more durable. Probably will last 10-15 years with casual wear if you don’t smash your watch around. The finishing mainly on the watch is brushed, but, the edges on the bezel are polished. The finishing is done really good, it is consistent all over the watch. The case is 41,5 wide, the thickness is 11,5mm and from lug to lug it measures at 50mm. It doesn’t have the lug width as it has integrated bracelet design and you can either get a rubber strap from D1 Milano or custom order a leather one. At 3 o’clock we have a screw-down crown in a hexagon shape. When I got the watch in, I actually thought it will have a push-pull crown, but it actually has a proper screw-down crown which is really great and it is pretty easy to grip it and use it. The exhibition case back is held on with small screws. The crystal on the back is a flat mineral crystal. On the back you won’t find any writings or anything. The watch has a 5ATM (50m) water resistance which means no swimming with it, it is just rain and hand wash resistant, but nothing more.

The dial is skeleton as the name of the watch already suggests. The hour indexes are in rose gold and kind of floating over the dial. The middle of the dial is skeletonized in black colour and it kind of has these geneva lines going from top to bottom. And then under that, we have the movement. The index hour and minute hands are brushed in the rose gold colour to match the case. I don’t usually like skeletons, I just think they are cheap looking in most cases, but this one is very well executed where it looks even more expensive than it is. On top of the dial sits a flat mineral crystal, of course, it would be nice to see a sapphire, but it isn’t something that would change my mind in buying the watch if I like it. On the underside of the crystal, we have the D1 Milano logo and the name of the watch “Skeleton“.

Inside the Skeleton, we have a Seiko NH70A automatic movement. In a short story, it is basically the same NH35 movement, just skeletonized. As we all know the NH series movements from Seiko are very reliable, easy and cheap to service and they run really great. Very popular in microbrands nowadays as they are easier to get than Swiss-made movements and much cheaper for basically the same performance and specifications. The power reserve is around 41h, it beats at 21,600 vph (6 vibrations per second), has 24 jewels and mine example runs at around +7 to +10 seconds a day which is pretty good from right out of the factory.

The bracelet that Skeleton came with is a pretty good one. It basically is a Royal Oak style bracelet with minor differences. It tapers from 26mm to 18mm. It is very comfortable on the wrist and it passed the “hair puller” test with flying colours which kind of shows how great the quality of the bracelet is. The less the quality of a bracelet, it pulls hairs, the better it manufactured and designed it pulls no hairs. The hidden butterfly clasp is working pretty good, it feels pretty secure. All the links are solid and held together with push pins, I would’ve wished it had screws, it would make the bracelet sizing much easier for us who don’t want to take it to watchmakers, but you can always get it to a watchmaker and they will do it no problemo!

Overall I love it! It isn’t the newest release from D1 Milano, but I have been wanting to review this one since it came out, I think 2 years ago. This model comes in many colour variations, and also is available not only on the bracelet, but on rubber strap too. The one that we are looking at today is selling for 630euros, but you can also get the same one on rubber strap fro 565euro. Anycase you are getting a lot of watch for the price in my opinion, yes it has some small things I personally would change, but you have to remember that there is no perfect watch in this world!

Price: €630.00 @ d1milano.com

• CASE SIZE

  41,5 mm

• CASE THICKNESS

  11 mm

• STRAP

  Stainless Steel

• GLASS

  Mineral Glass with blue anti-reflex coating

• MOVEMENT

  Japanese Automatic Movement

• WATER RESISTANCE

  5 ATM