Every year, we get something like closure by racking our brains over, what else, the Revolution Awards. To grease our ruminations, this year we have also created a few categories to be decided by the public. Join us as we unveil an Award Winner every day, counting down to the New Year.
Technical Star
Bulgari Octo Finissimo Chronograph GMT Automatic
When it comes to refreshing the watch collection of the brand, CEO of Bulgari Jean-Christophe Babin has done a magnificent job. The brand began the process of verticalising its entire watch production over a decade ago, and once its supply chain had been solidified, Babin quickly moved on to watch development with the Octo Finissimo series of ultra-thin watches. Developing ultra-thin watches are particularly challenging because of the mechanical and physical requirements of a high performance movement. Yet it’s also vastly underrated because these watches are often highly minimalist in design and therefore reveal little about the difficulties of developing them.
The Octo Finissimo tackled this with a powerful new design language, both within and without the watch. Housed in the most complicated watch case in the industry today, the brand added contemporary materials and modern treatments along with skeletonised displays of time. But with the Octo Finissimo Chronograph GMT Automatic, the watch’s near invisibility is its crowning achievement, featuring an automatic and horizontally coupled column-wheel chronograph as well as a “hidden” second time zone display, two modern watchmaking complication pillars today. The chronograph itself poses a remarkable challenge in ultra-thin watches, as the amount of force exerted on the movement during resets can be devastating to a watch. Add to that the extreme measurements of each wheel and pinion in the entire movement, and you understand why this earns the Technical Star award this year.
