REVOLUTION_International_Vol 54

CEO of Bvlgari,
Jean-Christophe
Babin, and Fabrizio
Buonamassa (right),
Director of Watch
Design at Bvlgari.
ORIGINS OF A HOROLOGICAL ICON
But before we go into the history and milestones of the Octo Finissimo, let’s
pause to examine the genesis of the integrated sports watch and the way in which
Bvlgari is both spiritually aligned and yet a radical departure from its rivals. So,
time was, if you were a Riviera Rake with the last name Agnelli or Rubirosa in that
halcyon era between the ’50s and the ’70s, before the Côte d’Azur was overrun
by oligarchs and priapically winged orange Lamborghinis that look like mobile
fertility symbols, before the era of champagne bottle wars and when culture,
taste and money still aligned, you had to dress in a certain way. And that was with
a certain educated but nonchalant élan, a Cifonelli or Caraceni blazer worn or,
better, cast over one shoulder like an old bathrobe as you hopped out of your
Ferrari 250 SWB and carved your path through the trellises of connubial haut
monde mademoiselles to the bar at the Hôtel du Cap. Now the watch on your
wrist could hardly be something as pragmatic as a diver’s tool watch. No, what
you needed to have, to casually check how many hours from sunset and that
rendezvous with that Italian screen ingénue decamped incognito to a nearby villa,
was an integrated bracelet, sports chic watch.
In the ’70s there were two models, the Royal Oak created in 1972 and the
Nautilus in 1976. The man behind both these watches, and clearly an individual
with a penchant for slim timepieces with faceted bezels that exhibited a dynamic
tension between bold, muscular designs counterpointed by slim (some would
even say lithe) profiles, was one Gérald Genta. When Genta eventually created his
own eponymous brand, he would also design an octagonal watch with an eightsided
bezel. Cut to several decades later in 2000 when Bvlgari would purchase
both Gérald Genta and Daniel Roth, at the time both owned by Singapore’s Tay
family of The Hour Glass fame, and inherit a great deal of high-complication
competences — two watch manufactures and the octagonal model that, while
appealing, had not yet realized its full creative potential.
Indeed, it took a few years for Bvlgari’s team of Babin,
Fabrizio Buonamassa and then-watchmaking head Guido
Terreni to realize what Genta’s design truly could be.
However, to achieve this, they had to undertake one of the
most technically innovative and daring creative programs
in the history of luxury watchmaking. The complexity came
about because one of the key objectives with Bvlgari’s new
Octo model, to be named the Octo Finissimo, was to create
the world’s thinnest mechanical watch. Says Jean-Christophe
Babin, “With respect to my competitors, movement
innovation like this hadn’t really been achieved since the last
real pioneering era of the late ’60s, when the industry was
chasing the achievement of the first automatic chronograph
with Heuer, Breitling and Hamilton pursuing the Caliber
11 and Zenith ultimately arriving at the groundbreaking El
Primero. For us, it was never the pursuit purely to have the
world’s thinnest mechanical watch. Rather, the goal was to
bring that same daring, innovation and finesse that has made
us a leader in the ladies’ and jewelry sector to the world of
men’s watches. It dawned on us that our advantage is that
we are Italian. All our watches and their components are
made in Switzerland but from a design perspective, as an
Italian company, we are much more open than the Swiss. We
draw inspiration from Italian architecture, from fashion,
from cinema, from the automotive world and from the very
landscape of our home city, Rome, which is so beautiful. We
decided we wanted to express the two very Italian qualities of
strength and elegance in a bold and groundbreaking manner.”
COVER STORY 29