Over the last decade, there have been rapid developments in all aspects of ultra thin watchmaking from self-winding movements to high complications, with Piaget and Bvlgari locked in a perpetual slimming contest to shave hundredths of a millimeter off each other. Back in March, Bvlgari had its nose in front with the launch of the Octo Finissimo Ultra that clocked in at a staggering 1.8mm, usurping the Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept, which had held the record for the world’s thinnest mechanical watch since 2018, by 0.2mm. But now Richard Mille has arrived completely out of left field with the RM UP-01 Ferrari, stealing the title with the watch’s barely-there height of 1.75mm. And to add insult to injury, it did so with a conventionally solid construction, boasting a full mainplate separate from the case.
The rapid pace at which records are set and broken today has somewhat attenuated the fact that making an especially flat mechanism was and still is a sure sign of engineering prowess. Along with the fact that all aspects of a watch — from case and strap to the crown and keyless works to the mainspring and balance — have to be critically rethought, it also gets increasingly difficult to deliver reliable performance as height plummets because slighter parts are necessarily weaker. There is, thus,
