When it comes to design, the Italians have it down pat. From fashion to jewelry, to furniture, and especially to automobiles, Italian design dominates in a league of its own. Doesn’t matter what product category you’re looking at, it always feels like there’s something going on akin to the Midas touch where even the simplest materials can look drop-dead gorgeous, and the faintest lines appear as masterful strokes of genius.
Indeed, great design is the simplest design, and great designers always know where to draw the line — literally — which brings to mind that famous adage that Italians love to quote “la bellezza è lo splendore del vero,” meaning beauty is the splendor of the truth. And this is an overarching philosophy you will observe in all the best, most quintessentially Italian designs. You see it in every Italian sports car from Ferrari to Lamborghini, the gorgeous superbikes of the Ducati motorcycle company, the famous 699 Superleggera Chair by Gio Ponti, the phenomenal Proust Armchair by Alessandro Mendini, and within the luxury watch industry, you definitely see it in the Bulgari Octo Finissimo.
A de facto icon of the 21st century, Bulgari’s Octo Finissimo has charted an incredible path to horological superstardom. Its epic rise to the topmost echelons of luxury watchmaking is made all the more amazing when you consider the fact that this watch has been around for less than 10 years. Yes, its introduction in 2014 feels almost a lifetime ago, but within this short span of just nine years, the Octo Finissimo has already scooped up not one, not two, but an unbelievable eight world records in ultra thinness from 2014 to 2022. That’s one for almost every year since its birth.
Let’s do a quick recap of all their achievements here: First was the Octo Finissimo Tourbillon with the thinnest hand wound flying tourbillon movement in the world at just 1.95mm. Next came the Octo Finissimo Minute Repeater with a case thickness of 3.92mm. After that, Bulgari launched the Octo Finissimo Automatic, which had a case thickness of 5.15mm and movement thickness of 2.23mm. Then, in 2018, the manufacture revisited the tourbillon complication with the Octo Finissimo Tourbillon Automatic at 3.95mm thick, followed by
