At LVMH Watch Week in Dubai, the Italo-Swiss watchmaker and jeweler added a tourbillon to Serpenti and debuted the first steel Octo Finissimo Automatic.
Serpents and gold co-star in Bulgari’s desert debuts this past January during Watch Week in Dubai where the brand joined its LVMH brethren to showcase new watches for 2020.
The jewelry and watchmaking company, which capitalizes on its deep Italian design and Swiss watchmaking prowess, adds several effervescent new models to its snake-head shaped Serpenti collection while also adding new gold, steel and ceramic finishes to its record-holding ultra-thin Octo Finissimo collections.
Serpenti & Dreams
Emphasizing a host of new and updated watches in its Serpenti Seduttori and Divas’ Dream collections, Bulgari sets the bar high by hatching a newly complicated Serpenti, the Serpenti Seduttori Tourbillon, with which Bulgari welcomes mechanical movements back to its collection of small watches for women.
Within the snake-head-shaped Serpenti Seduttori Bulgari places its new tourbillon caliber (BVL150) in the watch’s most prominent position just below the center to leave no doubt about the highly complicated nature of the watch’s movement.
Bulgari designed the movement specifically to fit and be clearly visible within the small Serpenti case. Bulgari watchmakers assured full transparency by developing a clear sapphire bridge to better display the tourbillon. Likewise, the tourbillon is highly visible from the back thanks to a sapphire crystal caseback. Bulgari also hand-decorated the entire caliber and then rhodium-plated it for extra brilliance, while utilizing a special diamond setting technique to ensure a thin case while also maximizing the watch’s high-carat glitter.
The Serpenti Seduttori Tourbillon is being offered with either a rose gold or a white gold case on a leather strap, or in white gold with a full diamond bracelet. Prices start at $78,000.
More for Women
While the tourbillon model highlights Bulgari’s 2020 offerings for ladies, look for at least five new Serpenti Seduttori watches in 2020, including at least one with diamonds and another that combines steel with rose gold and with white gold.
Also for women, Bulgari’s Divas’ Dream collection expands this year with a Divas’ Dream Minute Repeater Malachite, featuring a beautifully striped malachite green dial, surrounded by a diamond-set bezel. You may recall that this GPHG-award winning design is currently the thinnest minute repeater made for a women’s watch.
Bulgari also adds two new gold Divas’ Dream watches without the repeater. One features a rich blue lapis lazuli dial while another is finished with a colorful peacock feather dial.
Octo Repeater in Gold
Another highlight among Bulgari’s Dubai 2020 debuts is the new Octo Finissimo Minute Repeater in rose gold, powered by the ultra-thin (3.12mm) manual-wind minute repeater movement, the BVL 362 caliber.
This all-new version ($170,000) of the much-heralded record-breaking titanium-cased Octo Finissimo Minute Repeater from 2016 now glows on the wrist with an impressive sandblasted rose gold case.
As seen on earlier models, this rose gold edition retains the dial’s cutout hour and small seconds markers that serve to amplify the repeater’s chime. The pusher that activates the striking mechanism (at 9 o’clock) is wisely fitted with an “all or nothing” safety device. When fully wound, the movement delivers a 42-hour power reserve.
New Finishes
Throughout the Octo Finissimo collection, Bulgari in 2020 again focuses on the Italian design aspect of its Swiss engineered three-hand Octo Finissimo Automatic models.
Looks for three new models in this collection. First, two emphasize their new satin-polished non-monochromatic timepieces. These are the Octo Finissimo Automatic Satin-Polished Steel (priced at $12,000, it is the first steel watch in the collection) and the Octo Finissimo Automatic Satin-Polished Rose Gold ($22,700). Both watches show off the thin BVL 138 Finissimo caliber (2.23mm) and feature a polished black lacquer dial.
While the highly lauded Octo Finissimo Automatic in steel (which brings the entry level into the collection down to $12,000) features a nicely integrated steel bracelet, the rose gold version comes on an alligator strap.
The third new Octo Finissimo, the Octo Finissimo Automatic in Black Sandblast-Polished Ceramic, features a new sandblast-polished ceramic case and bracelet and sandblasted ceramic dial. This monochromatic look alternates its matte and polished surfaces, an effect that allows the light to play off the case and bracelet angles
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