On Wednesday, April 7th, with the start of the highly anticipated Watches & Wonder 2021 in a new, completely digital format, Bulgari announced some very interesting news for its Octo Finissimo line.
Bulgari’s Octo Finissimo
The Octo Finisimo represents the men’s flagship collection for Bulgari, a brand which is spear-heading a Swiss watchmaking renaissance thanks to their daring and refined style, as well as their expression of contemporary Italian design.
The Octo is already an icon of this century, as mentioned in our interview with Alessandro Squarzi, which is able to break the traditional design canons of men’s wristwatches, gradually imposing itself as the king of ultra-thin watchmaking.
We are talking about a line that had already shocked everyone at Baselworld 2019, where the automatic chronograph Octo Finisimo GMT had been awarded several prizes, breaking several world records. But now it’s time to beat some new ones!
Octo Finissimo Perpetual Calendar 2021
And yes! Finally, the eternal complication has made its appearance onto the watch from the eternal city of Rome. We are talking about the refs. 103200 and 103463 with a perpetual calendar (see our article on this complication here)
Bulgari has once again proven to perfecly master “the aesthetics of mechanics”, where technical limitations are solved in symbiosis by engineers and designers. (You can find our interview with Fabrizio Buonamassa, Head of design, here)
We also see how one of the most classic complications is reinterpreted in an ultra-thin, modern and contemporary design.
Bulgari Octo Finissimo Perpetual Calendar ref. 103200: another reference, another record
The new, complex function is housed in an innovative ultra-thin case: the 40mm sandblasted titanium case, with a thickness of just 5.80mm contains a totally in–house calibre which measures just of 2.75mm, and boasts 60 hours of power reserve. Simply outstanding!
The dial, which is perfectly legible, is made of titanium as well as the bracelet, which we have already encountered in previous references.
Bulgari Octo Finissimo Perpetual Calendar ref. 103463: blue lacquered dial
The second version presented offers a similarly sized platinum case with a satin finish. The dial is composed of a blue lacquer, and in addition to offering excellent legibility, it appears to play with the light extremely well. We look forward to seeing them in person!
The strap instead is made from blue alligator leather with a platinum pin buckle: an unprecedented combination on an Octo.
Bulgari Octo Finissimo Perpetual Calendar:
Complication and configuration of the dial
The dial features a 12 o’clock retrograde date indication. At 4, instead, we find the month indicator, on the left of which there’s a subdial displaying the days of the week.
Finally, at 6 o’clock, we have the retrograde leap year indicator.
Each watch will be delivered with a pin to set the date, month and day. The buttons to make any correction are placed on the sides of the case.
Since the calendar is perpetual, the date indication from 1 to 31 is automatically adjusted, even for leap years. Manual correction will be required only for secular years ending with 00 and not divisible for 400, as we explain here.
Bulgari Octo Finissimo 2021:
ref. 103534 Tadao Ando, limited to 160 pieces
Third reference is a limited edition timepiece which was made in collaboration with the renowned designer Tadao Ando.
The case, bezel and crown are made out of black ceramic, with its caseback proudly showing the piece number and the designer’s signature.
But it is the blue lacquered dial, with its special yellow gold moon pattern, that captures our eyes! It’s simply stunning… those offset concentric circles are hypnotic almost!
Now we just have to wait for our chance to get up close and personal with this brand’s latest creations! That way we can tell you how they feel on the wrist.
Oh, I almost forgot… the next manual adjustment required for the perpetual calendar will be in 2100…
-Translated by Claudio F.
