Bulgari’s CEO on Brand’s Thinnest Watch in the World

MILAN — A record breaking milestone contributed to Bulgari’s celebrations of its 140th anniversary this year, setting a new bar that had been thought impossible and revolutionizing the watchmaking industry.

Bulgari has developed the thinnest mechanical watch in the world, the Octo Finissimo Ultra COSC, which has garnered the brand its ninth award in 10 years, and is so exceptional that it is the reason the Rome-based luxury jeweler and watchmaker is being given the inaugural WWD Honor for Watch Brand of the Year.

Bulgari debuted the new iteration of the family’s Finissimo Ultra range, marked by unprecedented thinness, at the Watches and Wonders fair in Geneva last April and it quickly became the talk of the town. The Octo Finissimo Ultra COSC is a 1.70mm-thick timepiece and is the thinnest COSC-certified chronometer.

In an interview, chief executive officer Jean-Christophe Babin expressed his pride in Bulgari’s technical prowess and creativity as the watch “represents a remarkable triumph over the constraints of physics,” and is groundbreaking in achieving “reliability, wearability, performance and elegance” at the same time.

The watch broke Bulgari’s previous record in the Octo Finissimo Ultra range achieved in 2022 with a 1.80mm-thick timepiece – less than the size of a 2 Swiss franc coin. This is not for the movement alone, but for the watch as a whole, from the caseback to the top of the sapphire crystal. “Nobody believed we could go thinner in watch making; it was truly revolutionary,” recalled Babin.

Prices of the Octo Finissimo range from 15,000 to 620,000 euros and, like all Bulgari watches, they are produced in-house in three factories in Switzerland. The Octo Finissimo Ultra COSC was launched in a limited run of just 20 pieces retailing at 600,000 euros and 620,000 euros for the titanium and platinum versions, respectively.

Bulgari’s Manufacture de la Haute Horlogerie stands at Le Sentier, at the heart of Switzerland’s Watch Valley, where it develops the movements, connecting contemporary production machinery with centuries-old traditions of manual assembly and decoration of components. At Saignelégier is Bulgari’s Manufacture d’Habillage, which produces the exterior components of watches, the result of a merger in 2019 between Bulgari Manufacture of Case and Bulgari Manufacture of Dials, giving birth to one of the biggest habillage producers in Switzerland. Bulgari’s Horlogerie Neuchâtel is where the components are assembled to realize the final watches.

Bulgari now ranks among the top 15 watchmakers in Switzerland, Babin said.

Watches now account for around 15 to 20 percent of Bulgari’s total sales, which its parent group LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton does not break out.

The first Octo dates back to 2012 and the first Octo Finissimo to 2014.

Babin said that, with the first Octo, Bulgari introduced “the ultimate sophistication, more contemporary and elegant rather than classic, disruptive, with a slim fit for the modern gentleman.”

There is also a strong link between the Octo and the Pantheon, a symbol of Rome, where Bulgari is based. The monument is marked by a unique octagonal hall, and the watch is inspired by the geometrical motifs that adorn the arches of the monument. Eight is also “a symbol of good luck and infinity,” Babin noted.

The Octo Finissimo’s coin-like thickness was the result of a collaboration with engineers at Concepto Watch Factory, a Swiss workshop that specializes in complex mechanisms.

Reworking the case by shaving off an extra tenth of a millimeter, engineers managed to embed the multitude of components making up the manually wound BVL180 manufacture caliber inside the two-material slim case, which is crafted from sandblasted titanium or platinum and an ultra-resistant and dense tungsten carbide for the back case and main plate, ensuring adequate resistance and strength.

The watch’s sandblasted titanium bracelet is even thinner than the case, at 1.5mm.

Bulgari is also making history by adding a new tune to a range of chiming timepieces, introducing tritone harmonic intervals, created in collaboration with the Italian-Swiss conductor Lorenzo Viotti. At just 34 years old, Viotti, born in Lausanne, currently leads the Netherlands Philharmonic orchestra, and the Dutch national opera.

The Octo Roma Grande Sonnerie tourbillon is the most complex watch ever created by Bulgari and is crafted from titanium. Four hammers mark the time with a tune composed by Viotti.

Bulgari introduced the first Bulgari Bulgari watches in the mid-‘70s, but the Roman house has a 76-year history in the category with the Serpenti “secret watches,” which had the dial and movement nestled into a snake’s head. “Those were more like jewels,” Babin said. The brand introduced the Grand Complications in 2000.

Also celebrating the 140th anniversary, Bulgari has introduced three Octo Finissimo Limited Editions, each showcasing illustrated dials that depict the movements as if one were observing the watch from the reverse side. These three new models are a sequel to the Bulgari Octo Finissimo 10th Anniversary Sketch Limited Edition watches released in 2022. It also offered each owner exclusive access to a dedicated digital universe.

A watch “cannot be as emotional as staying in one of our hotels, so we are adding value and emotion to the watch itself, creating a new experiential dimension, unique for each customer,” Babin said.

“The team has built an icon in one decade. Icons are essentially aesthetic, but here is a reliable and accurate icon that combines technology with unique design,” Babin said. “Each Octo is a benchmark in each segment, and is making the history of contemporary haute horlogerie. It will help Bulgari to be recognized as a company that has written some of the finest pages in Swiss watchmaking. And the fact that this is an Italian house makes us particularly proud.”

This thinness also plays on the perception of the visible and the invisible: the Octo Finissimo Ultra and the Ultra COSC appear to be both a two-dimensional and a three-dimensional object. From the front, the timepiece reveals the depth of the mechanism, but viewed in profile, the watch, thin as a sheet of paper, becomes a two-dimensional object, mused Babin.

The Octo has received more than 60 international awards. Bulgari is the first Italian company to win the “Aiguille d’Or,” the most desirable award of the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève, which it did in 2021 with the Octo Finissimo Perpetual Calendar. In 2022, Bulgari won the GPHG Prix de l’Audace with the Octo Finissimo Ultra. 

Bulgari even equipped the first Octo Finissimo Ultra timepiece that bowed in 2022 with a QR code engraved on the barrel’s ratchet wheel. The code unlocks NFT artworks, and the Octo Finissimo Ultra COSC featured a Datamatrix on the back that unlocks storytelling content online.

In September, Watches and Wonders said that the 2025 edition, slated to take place April 1 to 7, will see the arrival of Bulgari among its exhibitors, reinforcing even more the brand’s “position in the top tier of the watch industry alongside the most respected brands in the world,” Babin said. Bulgari, which used to take part in Baselworld before pulling out in 2018, was previously showing independently during the fair period. It was also among the founding members of Geneva Watch Days, an event launched in 2020 that traditionally takes place in late August.