AT THIS year’s Baselworld, the industry’s leading event for luxury watches and jewellery, Bulgari announced that they had broken yet another world record. Two years prior at Baselworld 2014, Bulgari launched the Octo Finissimo Tourbillon, the world’s thinnest ever tourbillon-housing timepiece at just 1.95mm thick.
Now, Bulgari have done it again. This time the luxury jewellers have created the world’s thinnest minute repeater watch, the Octo Finissimo Minute Repeater, a hallmark of luxury and technical engineering. Before electricity, minute repeaters were useful for telling the time in the dark, or for the visually impaired, by chiming the hours and minutes.
Jean-Christophe Babin, friend of Bulgari Olga Kurylenko and fellow actor Luke Evans
Now, the relevance of minute repeater timepieces has diminished due to technological advances, but the complex mechanical engineering work that goes into making them has placed minute repeaters at the top of every watch collectors list.
Not only are they highly coveted, but they are extremely expensive. Bulgari’s breakthrough in technology is the perfect marriage of both the time-honoured engineering practises and the modern ability to adapt to the times.
by Thomas Marrington