Bulgari is no stranger to the Revolution Awards. In 2014, it picked up the Best Complication award for the Bulgari Octo Finissimo Tourbillon and in 2016, it won the Revolutionary Watch award for the Bulgari Octo Finissimo Minute Repeater. These watches, however, have only been the start of the salvo that the brand has been launching at the watch industry, representing the apex achievements of a full-bodied collection that has stunned observers.
This year’s award for Best Men’s Watch, unlike the previous winners, goes to a watch that’s a little more accessible, and it may just represent the most elegant, stunning and technically virtuosic interpretation of an everyday men’s timepiece.
The Bulgari Octo Finissimo Automatic currently holds the crown as the thinnest automatic watch in the world, and is powered by the new caliber BVL 138 with micro-rotor, itself an extension of the 2.23mm-thick BVL 128 that came with the manual-winding Octo Finissimo of 2014.
While the movement is a stunner, what is most amazing about this watch is that it comes with a case-matching sandblasted titanium bracelet. Now, in the grand scheme of things, it is, without a doubt, difficult to make an ultra-thin watch. Yet in this case, a further challenge seems to have been accepted by Bulgari, and that is to craft an integrated ultra-thin bracelet as well.
Put this watch on your wrist and you’ll start to wonder how such an incredible object can exist. The watch weighs almost nothing, yet there it sits, working as it should, with the small-seconds indicator at seven o’clock running, assuring you that this is a working piece of horology.
The lightness of the watch ensures that it doesn’t get in the way during the day, for it slips under the tightest of shirt cuffs with ease, serving up the time only when required, although truth be told, living with something as amazing as this is hard to ignore.
