Latest Review
You have to give it up for Piaget. When they introduced the Altiplano Concept Tourbillon last year, they made a hell of a play for the world’s thinnest tourbillon watch. At 2.0mm, that watch was (as most ultra-thin watches are) inconceivably thin. I have to imagine that, when Piaget introduced that watch last year, they felt pretty good about holding onto the record for at least a while but, as these things go, eventually, Bulgari has to have its say in the matter. A year later, we have Bulgari’s seemingly inevitable response: The Octo Finissimo Ultra Tourbillon.
At just 1.85mm thick, Bulgari’s latest Ultra-Thin masterpiece represents their 10th world record for thinness in watchmaking and reunites Bulgari with a record it has held on and off since 2014 — which, by way of comparison, was a record they had previously held with watches measuring 5mm and 3.95mm thick. Hard to imagine it, but each of those now seems downright chunky by comparison. There’s a good reason why you often see watches like this held up next to credit cards: Devoid of context, it’s almost impossible for your brain to compute just how little three-dimensional space these watches take up.
Bulgari has achieved this stupendously mind-blowing level of thinness by applying the design and construction techniques introduced with the 1.80mm thin Octo Finissimo Ultra and the 1.70mm thin Octo Finissimo Ultra COSC. Most notably, Bulgari has integrated the case and movement of the Octo Finissimo Ultra Tourbillon, a move that has become par for the course in this style of watchmaking, but which Bulgari had yet to apply to an ultra-thin tourbillon.
The result here is obviously impressive. Even for those not hugely into haute horology, ultra-thin watchmaking holds a distinct appeal, in part because it doesn’t require the same kind of horological knowledge as, say, a new sort of escapement or regulating device. It’s an oddly unifying sort of complicated watchmaking (though I’m aware that ‘thinness’ is not technically a complication in the traditional sense). No matter how deep you are into watches, no matter how much you know, or how much you’ve experienced, we all pretty much react to ultra-thin watchmaking the same way. That is to say, it breaks our conception of what is possible in the physical world.
That Bulgari manages to break your brain, while still making a watch that feels very much like an Octo Finissimo is staggering. A side effect of ultra-thin watchmaking is, often, a need to sacrifice a certain amount of form — there’s only so much you can do architecturally when your watch is less than 2mm thick — but Bulgari has managed to maintain the look of the Octo from all angles. Even in profile, the case of the Octo Finissimo Ultra Tourbillon still looks identifiably like an Octo as it was first introduced by Gerald Genta decades ago. From every angle, the 40mm, 1.85mm thick titanium case of the Octo Finissimo Ultra Tourbillon still feels like a watch, which may just be its best party trick.
Now, in a normal story, this is where I’d tell you about the availability and price of the watch you’d just read about, and I’ll still do that here (The Octo Finissimo Ultra Tourbillon is available now in a limited edition of 20 and are priced around three-quarters of a million Euro), but let’s be honest, availability is not what these watches are about. These are pure watchmaking for the sake of pure watchmaking, and I for one am excited to see who comes along next to try and snatch this record away. Bulgari
