This legendary watch has unveiled a new face this year with an avant-garde design in an ultra-precious form: the Serpeti Aeterna. A timepiece that hypnotizes you as much as it envelops you.
Embracing a Legendary Watch
To understand this new iteration, one must return to the origins of the model. Appearing in the late 1940s, the Serpenti borrows from the ancient world the symbol of the serpent, in which it embodies wisdom, rebirth, and eternity. Its seamless "tubogas" bracelet caused a sensation. Its shape evokes a spiro tube, a gas connection pipe used at the time. The Italian house was thus inspired by an industrial touch to design this tubular and flexible line that wraps around the wrist and again recalls the scales and movement of a reptile while materializing its strength. The head of this horological serpent houses a discreet dial, which sometimes even becomes secret according to the model's evolutions.
The Serpenti quickly became a signature of Bvlgari, worn by the biggest movie stars and the most influential women of the last century. Among them, Elizabeth Taylor, who, in a photo taken during the filming of the movie Cleopatra in 1962, sported a Serpenti in gold and platinum paved with diamonds and emeralds. The actress continually proclaimed her passion for the creations of the Italian jeweler.
Far from being static, the Serpenti has evolved and transformed. At times graphic, precious, miniaturized, or monumental, it has crossed the decades without ever losing its aura or allure. It does not forget its horological side, integrating the Piccolissimo BVL 100 caliber, reduced to the extreme, a record of miniaturization in 2022. With the Serpenti Aeterna unveiled this year during the Watches & Wonders exhibition, Bvlgari signs a new rendition of its muse in gold and scales that was not anticipated: a sculptural jewel watch that combines stylistic audacity and jewelry excellence in horology. Great art, Italian style!
Serpenti Aeterna, the Quintessence of Form
The Serpenti Aeterna marks the beginning of a whole new era for the reptilian icon by projecting it gracefully into the future. Bvlgari could not overlook the year 2025, under the astrological sign of the serpent in the Chinese calendar, to reinvent its myth. The renewal is embodied in the spectacular and avant-garde form of this watch. Beyond the horological object, the Serpenti becomes, for the first time, a rigid, fine, and tapered bangle that softly touches the skin. It is thus freed from all superfluous elements, without eyes, without scales, without artifice, only its bold and elemental form dominates, always evoking the serpent it embodies and even reflecting its soul. “More than a watch, more than a jewel, Aeterna is an avant-garde manifesto of Bvlgari style. I wanted to capture the DNA of Serpenti and project it into the future” explains Fabrizio Buonamassa Stigliani, the creative head of the house.
Bvlgari offers it in two versions, one in rose gold set with diamonds and a second even more precious in entirely paved white gold. The snow setting illuminates each piece from the dial to the tip of the serpent tail-shaped bracelet. In the white gold version, diamonds of different sizes accentuate the work on the volumes that have been achieved on this watch, giving even more depth to the object.
Its futuristic silhouette was designed and constructed to impress without blinding. For, once again, the Serpenti Aeterna imposes by its finesse. The serpent is no longer just a motif; it becomes a mobile, organic three-dimensional geometric object. It is quintessence and purity without losing sensuality. Its bracelet required two years of development to achieve perfection in both aesthetics and comfort. “I like to design in a contemporary style, with few decorative elements, to create lines that speak the language of eternity. Only a few strokes were enough to sketch Aeterna. The serpent concentrates, springs, sharpens... with visionary modernity” continues Fabrizio Buonamassa Stigliani.
The ultimate evocations of the serpent but also tributes to previous transformations of the model, inside this jewel - although invisible from the outside - are the emblematic hexagonal scales. A way for Bvlgari to integrate its new Aeterna into the history of the Serpenti and perhaps already elevate it to the rank of timeless icon…
