Bulgari Octo Finissimo Review: The King Of Ultra Thin Watches

The Bulgari Octo Finissimo collection has been a presence in the larger luxury-watch universe for just slightly over a decade now, but its impact has been tremendous — blazing trails of ultra-thinness in watchmaking that few brands have attempted and fewer have even attempted to rival. Today, the Octo Finissimo, in its simplest and most complex iterations, is regarded by enthusiasts as the creative cornerstone of the Bulgari brand, which up until very recently has been known more for high-jewelry watches than ambitious, record-setting mechanical complications. Here’s how the Octo Finissimo became an icon in 10 short years — starting from the very beginning. 

[toc-section heading="Bulgari History (1884-1934)"]

Sotirios Voulgaris, the only survivor of 11 children from a family of silversmiths in the Greek town of Paramythia, was born in 1857 and learned the family craft from his father, making jewelry as well as sword sheaths and belt buckles. After Ottoman invaders set fire to the town in 1873, the family moved to the Isle of Corfu, where Voulgaris met the man who’d become his mentor, Macedonian goldsmith Demetrios Kremos. The two artisans decided to start a business in Italy, settling first in Naples, and eventually in Rome, where they opened their first shop in 1884. After just a few months, however, the partnership ended and Voulgaris — who had now changed his name to the more Italianate “Sotirio Bulgari” — opened up his own shop, which found success selling silver jewelry, tableware, and other artisanal items and quickly expanded to seven locations. In 1910, Bulgari’s sons Giorgio and Constantino joined the business, which by that point was focused solely on high-end jewelry, and took it to an even higher level of success and prestige on the international stage by catering to the Art Deco tastes of the time. In 1934, two years after Sotirio Bulgari died, the Bulgari brothers established the now-internationally recognized “BVLGARI” trademark, adopting the ancient Roman alphabet for its letters. 

[toc-section heading="Bulgari Embraces Watchmaking (1940s - 1970s)"]

Bulgari was well established as a high-end jeweler before it ever dabbled in watchmaking. (This makes the Roman maison distinct from other brands like Cartier, Piaget, and Chopard, which, despite being better known as jewelers, were actually watchmakers first.) Bulgari made some jewelry wristwatches for ladies during the Art Deco heyday of the 1920s, but the timepiece that truly ushered in the Bulgari style of watchmaking (at least on the feminine side) was the first Serpenti in 1948. Designed around the iconography of a snake, a symbol of fertility and good fortune in ancient Greek and Roman cultures, the Serpenti paid homage to both sides of Bulgari’s history and remains one of the most iconic ladies’ watches, and a pillar of the brand, to this day. 

It wouldn’t be until the 1970s, however, during the infamous Quartz Crisis, that Bulgari entered the men’s watch arena in a major way. The first notable model was the Bulgari Roma, in 1975, which combined a yellow-gold case inspired by a Roman coin with a digital LED time display (powered, of course, by a quartz movement). This limited edition proved popular enough that Bulgari released another men’s watch — this one with an analog design and with a case design even more evocative of ancient Rome — in 1977, the Bulgari Bulgari. Its name was derived from the two Roman-font logos engraved on the watch’s gold bezel, a now-emblematic design attributed to the third-generation CEO Gianni Bulgari, and it opened the door for a wave of other Bulgari men’s watches in the 1980s and ‘90s, including the sport-oriented Diagano and the stylishly avant-garde Aluminium. 

[toc-section heading="The Birth of the Octo (2012)"]

The Octo Finissimo, however, traces its direct lineage not to these pre-millennial timepieces but to the original Octo watches (example above) made by legendary watch designer Gérald Genta (of Royal Oak and Nautilus fame) for the eponymous brand he founded in 1969. Bulgari bought the Gérald Genta brand, along with another watchmaker-founded indie atelier, Daniel Roth, with whom it shared corporate ownership, in 2000. As part of the sale, Bulgari acquired the high-end, high-complication watchmaking workshop that the brands also shared, bringing a new level of horological savoir-faire into the fold for the jeweler-watchmaker, which had relied almost entirely on outsourced movements. After several years of continuing under their own branding, Gérald Genta and Daniel Roth were absorbed into the Bulgari lineup and some of their most iconic timepieces adapted to fit the Bulgari watch DNA. 

Among these models was the Bulgari Octo (now retroactively referred to as Octo L’Originale), which launched as a collection in 2012. That watch featured the iconoclastic octagonal case design that Genta had formulated for his original Octo BiRetro models in 2004 but featured a classic three-handed (“Solotempo”) dial, rather than Genta’s double retrograde and other complicated designs, and incorporated classic Bulgari details like the familiar applied numerals at 12 and 6. The movement was one of Bulgari’s first in-house calibers, the automatic BVL 193 with a 50-hour power reserve. The template for Bulgari’s most important horological contributions in the 21st Century had been established, following up on significant developments on the business side one year earlier.

In 2011, the Bulgari family, which still owned a majority share in the now-global company, sold controlling interest to the French luxury conglomerate LVMH, which owns a plethora of luxury brands in the fashion, spirits, and accessories arenas, including watchmakers TAG Heuer, Zenith, and Hublot. Francesco Trapani, the fourth-generation Bulgari family member who had run the company since the 1980s, became Head of Watches and Jewelry for the LVMH Group and former TAG Heuer CEO Jean-Christophe Babin came on board as the new CEO of Bulgari in 2013. Babin’s vision of the Octo as the flagship of a new, more daring and technically innovative Bulgari watch brand, started playing out almost immediately, with the addition of an integrated bracelet to the Octo at the end of that year that elevated the model’s appeal. But the true milestone was yet to come. 

[toc-section heading="Bulgari Octo Finissimo Early Days (2014-2016)"]

The introduction of the first Bulgari Octo Finissimo models in 2014 was a watershed for Bulgari as a watchmaker, and helped forge for it a new and dynamic identity among its peers. The “Finissimo” added to the end of the model name translates to “superfine” or “very fine,” and it was an apt descriptor. The angular Octo case, with its wide, rounded bezel and integrated bracelet, was drastically slimmed down to about half the height of previous Octo models and both of the two models introduced that year contained similarly thin movements — the latest expressions of the talent brought to bear by the former Genta/Roth high-complication house in Le Sentier (above) that was now fully integrated as the Bulgari watchmaking manufacture. In the simpler Octo Finissimo Petite Seconde, a limited edition of 100 pieces in platinum, the new movement inside was the manually wound caliber BVL 128, just 2.23mm thick, with a small seconds display and an indicator for the lengthy 70-hour power reserve on the back.

The real headliner of that seminal year for Bulgari, however, was the first Octo Finissimo Tourbillon, which set records — the first of many, it would turn out — as the world’s thinnest tourbillon watch and also the world’s thinnest tourbillon movement. The platinum case measured 40mm in diameter and only 5mm thick — yes, slightly thinner than the Petite Seconde model despite the presence of a flying tourbillon at 6 o’clock. The watch housed Caliber BVL 268, a manual-winding movement just 1.95mm thick — as Bulgari memorably boasted at the time, thinner than a Swiss 5-franc coin. To achieve this record-shattering thickness (the previous claimant was Arnold & Son’s UTTE from 2013), Bulgari’s watchmakers devised several technical solutions for the movement, like incorporating the tourbillon cage into the mainplate, using separate bridges for the minute wheel and gear train, and using ball bearings rather than jewels for many moving parts, including for the positioning of the barrel, which held an impressive 55-hour power reserve. 

Octo Finissimo Minute Repeater (2016)

Despite ushering in the face of its future with the Octo Finissimo in 2014, Bulgari stepped back from the ultra-thin model the next year, focusing instead on revamping other collections like the Diagano and Roma. But the Octo Finissimo returned to center stage in 2016 with another record-setting complicated timepiece, the Octo Finissimo Minute Repeater, offered first only in titanium and eventually in rose gold. It was the world’s thinnest chiming watch — a decidedly impressive horological feat due to the challenge of allowing enough interior space for sound diffusion inside the case. The movement Bulgari’s watchmakers developed, Caliber BVL 362, measures just 3.12 mm thick and was installed inside a 40-mm case that is also wafer-thin, at 6.85mm in titanium and just a smidgen thicker in rose gold.

Among the technical and aesthetic breakthroughs achieved by Bulgari’s watchmakers are the cut-out hour-markers on the dial, which bears the same sandblasted finish as the case; and the cut-out ring around the small seconds subdial at 6 o’clock, both of which cleverly create openings that serve to amplify the resonance inside the case and thereby optimize the sound effect. The sound-producing gongs are directly affixed to the case and finished by hand, and the 9 o’clock pusher activating the striking mechanism is equipped with an “all or nothing” safety device that helps maintain the watch’s 50-meter water resistance, a rarity in a minute repeater. The Octo Finissimo Minute Repeater was limited to 50 pieces. In 2024, for the Octo Finissimo's 10th anniversary, Bulgari would revisit the Minute Repeater with an avant-garde case (and bracelet!) made of forged carbon.

[toc-section heading="Octo Finissimo Automatic And Complications (2017-2021)"]

Bulgari pulled back from high complication in the Octo line the following year, turning its expertise instead to a more entry-level timepiece, the Octo Finissimo Automatic. Like the Petite Seconde in 2014, this was an elegantly simple time-and-date-only watch, but with the added benefit of a self-winding rather than a manually wound caliber. With the 40mm case spanning just 5.15mm in thickness and a movement height of just 2.23mm, the watch, whose case, bracelet and dial were all constructed of lightweight, sandblasted titanium, briefly held the title of world’s thinnest automatic watch. (it was eclipsed later that same year by the 4.30mm-thick Altiplano Ultimate from Piaget, also no slouch when it comes to minimalist, ultra-thin watches.)

The new Caliber BVL 138 was noteworthy for its use of a platinum micro-rotor, which enabled the watchmakers to shave several millimeters off the height, and its impressive 60-hour power reserve. The Octo Finissimo Automatic would prove to be a popular canvas for unconventional dial colorways and materials, such as the Tuscan Copper edition in 2023.  

Octo Finissimo Tourbillon Automatic

It only took one year, however, for Bulgari to break not only Piaget’s record but also its own, and once again in grand horological fashion. The Octo Finissimo Tourbillon Automatic, introduced in 2018 and equipped with the ultra-thin Caliber BVL 288, became upon its release not only the world’s thinnest self-winding tourbillon but also the world’s thinnest automatic watch, period. The watch’s sandblasted titanium case boasted a super-slender profile of just 3.9mm, and the movement, Caliber BVL 288, used a peripheral rotor made of platinum and aluminum and mounted on ball bearings, two factors that enable it to retain the same wafer-like 1.95 mm silhouette as its manual winding predecessor while also enabling a power reserve of 52 hours. 

Octo Finissimo Chronograph GMT (2019)

Bulgari added another complication, and another thinness record, to its growing repertoire in 2019: the Octo Finissimo Chronograph GMT, which took the prize for the thinnest mechanical chronograph with a dual-time function. The titanium case of this model measured 42mm in diameter and 6.9mm thick — positively bulky compared to the thinnest models in the family but absolutely unprecedented for a chronograph-equipped wristwatch.

The movement, Caliber BVL 318, came in at just 3.3mm in thickness, despite the complex architecture that included a classical column-wheel system, aided in this pursuit by (once again) the use of a platinum micro-rotor to wind the watch. The dial featured a classical three-register arrangement, with chrono counters at 6 and 9 o’clock plus a 24-hour subdial at 3 o’clock for the GMT display. 

Octo Finissimo Tourbillon Chronograph (2020)

Watches equipped with both a tourbillon and a chronograph are rare, and watches that manage to incorporate both inside a skeletonized movement are even rarer — so what Bulgari accomplished in 2020 with the Octo Finissimo Tourbillon Chronograph is impressive even without taking into account the record the timepiece set as the thinnest of its type in the world. The 42mm case — here again in sandblasted titanium, which has become the default material for new Octo Finissimo models — measures only 7.4mm tall, and the movement, the self-winding, micro-rotor-equipped Caliber BVL 388, is only 3.5mm thick, just a modicum thicker than the non-tourbillon Caliber BVL 316, despite the inclusion of a monopusher mechanism for the chronograph. (By way of comparison, the Carrera Tourbillon Chronograph from Bulgari’s LVMH stablemate TAG Heuer is 14.3mm thick in its 42mm iteration.) The openworked dial features another avant-garde take on the classic three-register layout, with two subdials at 3 and 9 o’clock flanking an aperture for the tourbillon escapement at 6 o’clock. That same year, as if to acknowledge the increasing demand for the Octo Finissimo among enthusiasts, Bulgari released the first models in stainless steel, initiating the Octo Finissimo S sub-brand, first with a time-only "Petite Seconde" model and eventually also a Chronograph GMT version. 

Octo Finissimo Perpetual Calendar (2021)

By 2021, the Italian (actually now Italian-Swiss) jeweler-turned-watchmaker had conquered many of the challenges of ultra-thin high horology, but one major accomplishment remained: creating a perpetual calendar with a similarly slender design. The bar had already been set rather high, with Audemars Piguet having dominated the conversation with its Royal Oak Selfwinding Perpetual Calendar Ultra-Thin model, released in 2019 and boasting a case just 6.3mm thick. Bulgari managed to hurdle it, however, with the launch of the Octo Finissimo Perpetual Calendar — the new world’s thinnest, whose 40mm titanium case measured just 5.8mm high.

The model’s calendar displays are distinctly arranged in all-analog fashion, including a retrograde date display that dominates the upper half of the sandblast-finished dial and a pointer-type leap-year indicator that balances it out at the bottom. Two parallel subdials at 4 o’clock and 8 o’clock reveal the month and day, respectively, while the two central skeletonized hands display the time. The case is shaped in the familiar style of Bulgari’s Octo series, with angular lugs and sides topped by a round bezel; inside is the record-setting, automatic Caliber BVL 305, which self-winds by means of a micro-rotor and measures an astounding 2.75mm in thickness despite its array of functions. The Octo Finissimo Perpetual Calendar was awarded the Aiguille d’Or, or Best in Show, at that year's Grand Prix d’Horlogerie Geneve (GPHG), the prestigious “Oscars of Watchmaking.”

[toc-section heading="Octo Finissimo Ultra And Beyond (2022-2025)"]

For the 10th anniversary of the revived Octo collection in 2022 (the Octo Finissimo series wouldn’t turn 10 until two years later), Bulgari stepped back again from high-complication challenges and back to the basics of reclaiming its “world’s thinnest watch” title from Piaget, which had held it since the commercial release in 2020 of the Altiplano Ultimate Concept, whose case was almost unthinkable 2mm thick. Bulgari’s response was the Octo Finissimo Ultra, a marvel of technical engineering with an astonishing 1.80mm case thickness. The back of the 40mm octagonal case serves as the movement’s baseplate and the integrated bracelet has the same thinness as the watch as well as the same sandblasted finish. In profile, the timepiece is barely thicker than a sheet of paper. Joining the regulator-style hours and minutes display and off-center seconds on the dial is an engraved QR code on the ratchet wheel — a watch-world first — that connects the watch’s owners (of which there are only 10) to an exclusive piece of NFT artwork and a plethora of extras, including a virtual 3D tour of the movement.

The case combines titanium and tungsten carbide with an anthracite DLC treatment; the movement, Bulgari’s BVL Caliber 180, stores 50 hours of power reserve in its large barrel and includes two horizontally placed knobs for winding and setting to replace a traditional stem-mounted crown. This extremely limited timepiece held the coveted title until Richard Mille upped (or is that lowered?) the ante yet again with the release of its RM UP-01 Ferrari later that same year, which shaved off .05mm for a waif-like case profile of 1.75mm.

Octo Finissimo Ultra COSC (2024)

As it marked a decade of enhancing and shaking up the Bulgari lineup, and the wristwatch world in general, the Octo Finissimo was once again set to make history: the Octo Finissimo Ultra COSC, unveiled in 2024, snatched back the World’s Thinnest Wristwatch crown that had briefly been held by Richard Mille with its sandblasted titanium case (not the movement; the case) coming in at an almost inconceivable 1.70mm thick. The movement, Caliber BVL 180, is not only built right onto the watch’s tungsten carbide mainplate like its predecessor, offering a more-than-adequate 50-hour power reserve; it’s also got a certification for timekeeping accuracy and reliability from COSC, Switzerland’s official chronometer testing authority. The 20-piece limited edition, with an openworked regulator-style dial, takes the collection into new territory while simultaneously throwing down the gauntlet, once again, for any competitor tempted to join the fray of the slender-watch sweepstakes. 

Octo Finissimo Ultra Tourbillon (2025)

On the heels of the major milestone it achieved with the first Octo Finissimo Ultra edition in 2022, Bulgari could not resist upping the ante on both design and level of complexity in 2025 with the launch of the Octo Finissimo Ultra Tourbillon. Coming in at a razor-thin 1.85mm — yes, just .05 thicker than the time-only Ultra — the watch takes the coveted title of the world’s thinnest tourbillon watch, leaving some very impressive previous claimants to that title (incuding some of Bulgari's own) in the dust. The case is 40mm wide, with its main parts made from microbead-frosted titanium, and incorporates two planar “crowns” at 3 o’clock and 8 o’clock to set the time and wind the movement, respectively. Mounted on a mainplate of tungsten carbide, the manually wound Caliber BVF 900 not only features a traditional two-handed time display (in contrast to the regulator style of its predecessor) but also a skeletonized architecture, with a rhodium-plated balance and bridge for the “flying” tourbillon escapement. The integrated bracelet, another hallmark of the multiple-award-winning Octo Finissimo series, is made of the same microbead-frosted titanium and is even thinner than the case, rising just 1.5mm above the wrist. Fully eight patents have been secured for this model, which is limited to 20 pieces.

While Bulgari has never lost hold of its elite status among high-end jewelers, its Octo Finissimo collection — now entering its second decade of record setting, precedent shattering, and seemingly unfettered horological boldness — continues to secure the company a place at the table of this century's most important watchmaking houses. You can learn more at bulgari.com