Bulgari Recaptures the Crown for the World’s Thinnest Watch

Bulgari has its world report again. On Monday, the Italian luxurious home with the Swiss advantageous watchmaking division reclaimed the report for the world’s thinnest mechanical wristwatch.

The Octo Finissimo Extremely Mark II is 1.7 millimeters thick, 0.05 millimeters thinner than Richard Mille’s 1.75 millimeter RM UP-01 Ferrari, which two years in the past snatched the report from Bulgari’s 1.8 millimeter Octo Finissimo Extremely.

The distinction? Half a tenth of a millimeter, roughly the thickness of a bit of workplace printer paper.

“That is sci-fi,” Antoine Pin, managing director of Bulgari’s watchmaking division, stated of his record-breaker. “It makes individuals excited and brings world consideration to the section. In spite of everything, individuals don’t come to Bulgari for the rational, and also you don’t purchase a mechanical look ahead to the perfection of the time-keeping course of.”

The race for the world’s thinnest mechanical watches has sped up lately.

Institution watchmakers similar to Audemars Piguet, Jaeger-LeCoultre and Piaget quietly jostled for super-slim supremacy for many years, then, in 2014, Bulgari’s newly fashioned advantageous watchmaking division slid into the report books for the primary time with its five-millimeter Octo Finissimo Tourbillon, then the world’s thinnest tourbillon (a report that Piaget was scheduled to rewrite Tuesday with the introduction of its 2-millimeter-thick Altiplano Final Idea Tourbillon).

Bulgari is now acknowledged as one of many first names in ultrathin watchmaking, registering its ninth world report for thinness with the brand new timepiece. Thinness is very regarded by collectors and fellow makers as a result of lowering components can have an effect on the integrity of watch parts and their operate.

Does Bulgari do it only for the glory? Mr. Pin insisted that the first motivation was to advance watchmaking applied sciences.

“The concept was at all times to verify we suggest one thing that has horological worth and never simply to do the factor for the sake of doing it,” he stated. “The paradox is that we work in an business that’s locked prior to now, and but nonetheless we’re projecting it into the longer term. Extra attention-grabbing than this notion of beating a thinness report is the notion of chronometry,” or the science of correct time measurement.

In addition to being a tenth of a millimeter thinner than the unique Extremely, Mr. Pin stated the Octo Finissimo Mark II can also be extra correct, reaching the chronometer mark awarded by Switzerland’s impartial Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres, often known as C.O.S.C., which seems on the brand new watch’s dial.

In most cases, a watch motion is examined by C.O.S.C. earlier than it’s inserted into its case. However the case and the motion of the Extremely Mark II are fused, so every one can be examined as a unit.

Mr. Pin stated it was statistically inconceivable to say precisely how correct the watch can be as a result of every of the 20 numbered limited-edition items slated for manufacturing had been more likely to be barely totally different. (He acknowledged that some may not even obtain C.O.S.C.’s accuracy requirement {that a} timepiece lose a most of 4 seconds or acquire a most of six seconds a day.)

Mr. Pin additionally stated that, regardless of its wafer-thin profile, the brand new watch can be sturdy. “Being small doesn’t imply being fragile,” he stated. “What was necessary was by no means to neglect the fundamentals of watchmaking: give time and be wearable.”

He added {that a} purchaser of the primary Extremely wore it whereas taking part in golf. “However we’d by no means advise that,“ he stated.

The brand new watch, which has a 40-millimeter sandblasted titanium case and a 1.5-millimeter-thick bracelet in the identical materials, nonetheless has the 50-hour energy reserve of the unique mannequin. Mr. Pin stated the teachings of micro-mechanics established by the home’s ultrathin watches may someday be utilized to bigger fashions.

“Nobody would have imagined 15 years in the past we may make such skinny watches, and make them chronometers,” he stated. “Ten years from now, we are going to discover watches with an influence reserve of two months.”

There are two variations between the primary Extremely and the brand new watch: The Extremely Mark II lacks a QR code on the dial and a certificates backed up by blockchain. As an alternative, every watch is to have a novel QR code on its case again. That code is to incorporate a hyperlink to what Bulgari is looking a Datamatrix, an internet product guide particular to the person watch that additionally consists of generic movies of Extremely Mark IIs being made.

Mr. Pin stated he was glad that different manufacturers’ efforts to develop ultrathin watches had pushed Bulgari to go thinner.

“Piaget’s report was massively necessary for us to develop our personal product,” he stated, referring to Piaget’s two-millimeter Altiplano Final Idea, which debuted in 2018. “If Piaget or Richard Mille comes with one other report, there’s so much we are able to study from one another.”

In spite of everything, he stated: “For us, hitting this report, it’s not the tip of the story.”