It’s a very odd feeling, to have been following a brand since it first launched. It’s like watching a child grow up, albeit from afar. You see them intermittently and always find yourself marvelling at how much they’ve developed, before, all of a sudden, they hit maturity and you find it hard to believe they haven’t always been that way. How did that small bundle of hope grow into a fully-fledged entity, capable of surviving in this wild world of ours?
Echo/Neutra Cortina 1956 Chronograph GMT. Credit - WatchGecko
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- £68.00
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- £68.00
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- £68.00
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- £68.00
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When it comes to timing, Echo/Neutra’s could hardly have been better. The brand debuted on Kickstarter in 2019 and delivered its first model — the Averau — just six months before COVID swept the globe. The long, lonely months of lockdown with little to do but research new and interesting watch brands surely played into this Italian outfit’s favour, but even those seemingly endless empty days wouldn’t have been enough to guarantee success were the product not up to scratch.
Echo/Neutra Cortina 1956 Chronograph GMT. Credit - WatchGecko
Five years in, Echo/Neutra feels like a mainstay of the indie watchmaking scene. Interestingly, the brand defines itself as a Microbrand, which, to my mind, doesn’t do it justice. The brand’s goal of creating timeless, well-made watches with a dash of Italian elegance does mean that the aesthetics are not particularly challenging, but they are far from generic. A sensitive use of colour has typified the brand’s output up until this point and is once more deployed on the Cortina 1956 Chrono GMT.
Echo/Neutra Cortina 1956 Chronograph GMT. Credit - WatchGecko
- Regular price
- £24.00
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- £24.00
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- £24.00
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- £24.00
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Powered by the Sellita SW532M b elaboré calibre, the Cortina 1956 Chrono GMT is just 40 mm in diameter and 14.8 mm thick. That slight chunkiness is offset well by the metal bracelet, which is, unusually for this brand, the option I would go for here. Normally, I lean towards the leather or fabric options as I feel a more rustic aesthetic suits the dolomite-inspired watch heads better, but when it comes to the much more refined Chrono GMT, it just feels more complete to go for the full metal ensemble.
Perhaps I have been heavily influenced by the more ambitious of the two dial designs. While the “standard” black dial continues the Cortina’s popular “faux vintage” theme with red accents complimenting the creamy lume and print, a “bronze” sunburst dial with black sub-registers steals the show for me. I’m not sure if I like it more than the black dial but I know for sure that I can’t take my eyes off it.
Echo/Neutra Cortina 1956 Chronograph GMT. Credit - WatchGecko
Functionally, this chronograph displays the time, second time zone by way of a bright red, centrally-mounted GMT hand, elapsed seconds (60), minutes (30), and hours (12), and whether or not it is day or night thanks to a graphical disc located beneath the 9 o’clock sub-dial, which also houses the running seconds hand.
Echo/Neutra Cortina 1956 Chronograph GMT. Credit - WatchGecko
As with all Echo/Neutra watches, the Cortina 1956 Chrono GMT is Swiss-made. This model is water resistant to 100 meters and priced at an incredible €1,970, which, at the time of writing, was roughly £1,680.
Given the brand’s staying power, known build quality, and growing reputation as one of the most professionally and courteously operated micros, the price, in my opinion, represents true value.
