Every year, there will be “new” watches that are just the same movements in a new case, on a new strap or bracelet, or brandishing a new dial or bezel color. Then there will be new watches that employ existing calibers that have been incorporated with an additional complication. Each year, there will be novelties driven by newly engineered movements too — many of these brand-new calibers are based on the reliable, accurate, tried-and-tested blueprints of predecessors. And then there’s Bvlgari.
What if Hercules was commanded to accomplish his 12 labors with one arm tied behind his back? “We want to execute all these difficult tasks, but we’ll set constraints that don’t let us execute them the conventional way, so we’ll have to find a new way of executing each task.” This is, in essence, what Bvlgari demands of itself every year. This is the story of how a jewelry brand came to be loved and admired in the rarefied echelons of haute horlogerie.
Christened “Jeweler to the Stars,” Bvlgari has attracted royalty and A-lister celebrities from around the world to its boutique in Rome for decades. Bvlgari is still beloved for its haute joaillerie watches, but with the unveiling of the Octo Finissimo in 2014, Bvlgari cemented its status in the high horology world.
Watch fans would be familiar with the Octo Finissimo, an impossibly thin timepiece by Bvlgari that gave rise to several exquisitely complicated watches. The latest game changing addition to this collection is the Bvlgari Octo Finissimo Ultra (“the Ultra,” for all intents and purposes) of which only 10 editions have been made.
Before we go on for several pages about every jaw-dropping aspect of the Ultra and the unprecedented approaches Bvlgari took when building the Ultra from the ground up, I would like to highlight the overarching theme of the Ultra: the apex of traditional craftsmanship, which is, in other words, the mastery of physical construction and manipulation, now has a direct link to the budding and expanding virtual world.
FROISYou’ll fall for the Bvlgari Octo Finissimo Ultra when you see it in motion. Scan this QR code to enjoy a clip of Bvlgari CEO Jean-Christophe Babin sharing the founder Wei Koh
