Swiss caliber, Italian style, stunning thinness: Octo Finissimo Ultra Tourbillon "summarizes all of our know-how" appreciates Fabrizio Buonamassa Stigliani, executive director of watch creation at Bvlgari. "It's not just about having the thinnest design, but achieving a precise execution that tells the story of the Octo Finissimo series, respecting the integrity of its distinctive aesthetic codes. Every detail, from the indexes to the tourbillon skeleton, testifies to our will for excellence." In just over ten years, the brand will have successively established 10 records, within its Octo Finissimo and then Octo Finissimo Ultra collection. The tourbillon, already in itself a feat of miniaturization in a more "usual" thickness for a watch, once again entered the dimension of the minuscule.
A Story of Millimeters...
With Octo Finissimo Ultra Tourbillon, Bulgari returns to its first loves, and revisits the tourbillon mechanism, which it had already refined in 2014, for its first thinness record. Then, the caliber of the Octo Finissimo Tourbillon displayed a thickness of 1.95 mm. The model dethroned the UTTE watch, made by Arnold & Sohn, with its movement of 2.97 mm thickness (8.34 mm case included). In 2020, Bulgari marked another milestone in the field of thinness, a skeletonized automatic chronograph tourbillon. Then, last year, in 2024, Piaget established a new threshold with the Altiplano Ultimate Concept Tourbillon, displaying a total thickness (movement and case) of 2 mm.
But this year 2025, on the occasion of its first participation in the Watches and Wonders Geneva Salon, Bulgari manages to further reduce this by 0.15 mm! The Octo Finissimo Ultra Tourbillon establishes the new thinness record for a tourbillon watch at 1.85 mm.
The Grandeur of Thinness
The imperceptible nature to the human eye of a tenth of a millimeter proves inversely proportional to the ingenuity at work. Between the Octo Finissimo Tourbillon of 2014 and that of 2025 can be read the evolution of the brand, in terms of extra-thin mastery.
The new Octo Finissimo Ultra Tourbillon is generously skeletonized – in the lineage of the 2020 Tourbillon Chronograph, whereas the first record featured a deep black dial masking the movement.
Especially, since the Octo Finissimo Ultra in 2022, the brand has made the movement the watch dial, an aesthetic evolution as profitable in terms of thickness gain. The ratchet wheel, engraved with a geometric pattern, recalls the ratchet wheel of the Octo Finissimo Ultra, marked with an NFT code. The mechanism reveals itself on the dial side, with gear trains and tourbillon, highlighted by the transparency of the skeletonization. Moreover, instead of the previous Ultra's regulator, the time is now indicated via 2 hands – this requiring managing a higher vertical space.
The Secret of Bidimensionality
To achieve such thinness, the manufacture had to revisit the fundamentals of watchmaking – working on two dimensions rather than three. Among the major innovations that allowed reducing the total thickness of the watch to that of the movement itself is of course the feat of forming a whole with the case middle, the main plate, and the back.
Following the technical adjustments of its research and development teams, Bulgari has filed a specific patent for the extra-flat cage, and leveraged 5 patents it already holds – including the glass fixing system, optimized to avoid damaging the movement in case of glass flexing.
Moreover, the skeletonization – while reinforcing the aesthetic beauty of transparency of the watch – reduces the available matter in counterpart. Added to this is the fact of fixing the glasses to the bottom, which further reduces the space available for the rest of the movement elements.
Refining Without Bending
Another major challenge to achieve extreme thinness? Mastering the deformations of extra-thin components. To solve this complex issue, Bvlgari teams used two materials of superior resistance. First, tungsten carbide, for the main plate, on which the mechanical movement of the Octo Finissimo Ultra Tourbillon rests (9.0 on the Mohs scale). Then microblasted titanium, for the bezel, case middle, and lugs.
Light, thin, robust at the same time, Octo Finissimo embodies both Bulgari's imperative elegance, and the technical expertise acquired since 2014, symbolic of the Octo Finissimo evolution. Every visible component, but also the characteristic shape of the box, recall that style and ingenuity definitely go hand in hand.
Bulgari Octo Finissimo Finesse Records
Octo Finissimo Manual Tourbillon (2014, caliber BVL 268, 1.95 mm)
Octo Finissimo Minute Repeater (2016, caliber BVL 362, 3.12 mm)
Octo Finissimo Small Second Automatic (2017, caliber BVL 138, 2.23 mm)
Octo Finissimo Automatic Tourbillon (2018, caliber BVL 288, 3.95 mm)
Octo Finissimo Chronograph GMT Automatic (2019, caliber BVL 318, 3.30 mm)
Octo Finissimo Automatic Skeletonized Tourbillon Chronograph (2020, caliber BVL 388, 3.50 mm)
Octo Finissimo Perpetual Calendar (2021, caliber BVL 305, 2.75 mm)
Octo Finissimo Ultra (2022, caliber BVL 180 of 1.50 mm thickness, for a total thickness of 1.80 mm)
Octo Finissimo Ultra COSC (2024, caliber BVL 180 of 1.50 mm thickness, for a total thickness of 1.70 mm)
Octo Finissimo Ultra Tourbillon (2025, caliber BVF 900 of 1.55 mm, for a total thickness of 1.85 mm)
