Leave it to an Italian house predominately known for jewelry and the house’s product creation executive director, Fabrizio Buonamassa Stigliani, a creative with a knack for illustration and a background in car design, to create a watch with an entirely new design language that ultimately resulted in 8 world records for ultra-thin watchmaking since it debuted a decade ago. The latest record, set by the Octo Finissimo Ultra, slimmed the timepiece down to 1.8 mm—just a hair thicker than a quarter. Yet, within that micro setting, it manages to pack in 170 components and 50 hours of power reserve. It’s a feat of both design and engineering that reduces the complexity of watchmaking into a timekeeper so light and svelte, you could forget it was on your wrist. In fact, it’s easy to forget the incredible amount of R&D and talent required to make the piece when it feels like a toy watch from a gum ball machine.
While much of the Octo Finissimo is certainly about bragging rights (of course, most of watchmaking is just that in an era where its technology is no longer needed) due to packing a lot of guts into a slim waistline, the exterior design of the watch is equally impressive. So many brands try to reinvent the wheel, and most are at their best when they do anything but—the name of the game in luxury is small tweaks, not total makeovers. Yet, Bulgari went out on a limb with the Octo Finissimo, which looks unlike anything else on the market and still has an appeal that feels potentially enduring. It’s more akin to a sharp modern skyscraper than the decorative, rounded grandeur of a Gilded Age manse. And that’s exactly the idea. The Octo Finissimo has even driven that point home with collectible editions in collaboration with Japanese architect Tadao Ando. It’s a canvas that appears to keep on giving—it has served as the backdrop to a minute repeater and a tourbillon chronograph skeleton to a special edition released this year displaying Buonamassa Stigliani’s hand-sketched rendering of the watch on its dial. Rome was, after all, always ahead of its time.
From the article by Allen Farmelo, Paige Reddinger, Victoria Gomelsky, Oren Hartov, Blake Buettner
