Creation And Evolution Of The Octo Finissimo

Augustman looks at the creation and evolution of the Octo Finissimo, our generation’s greatest redefinition of the luxury sports watch genre since the Royal Oak

- Jonathan Ho

FOR DECADES, Bvlgari was recognised primarily as a jeweller extraordinaire, until in 2014, the Roman brand fundamentally altered the watchmaking landscape with the Octo Finissimo. “Superfine” in English, the Bvlgari Octo Finissimo instantly earned the admiration of watch lovers who had grown cynical of the formulaic repetition of sportive luxury watch aesthetics.

Having grown up in the ’80s, exposure to tentpole industry-defining timepieces like the Royal Oak and Nautilus meant that my generation had known little else beyond the integrated bracelet sports genre of watches, This changed in 2012, when Bvlgari, which had been working under the radar and completely in-house, unveiled the Octo. It became a shining moment in our horo-cultural zeitgeist and Bvlgari’s most commercially successful men’s watch. What was to follow, however, was truly unexpected, statements of watchmaking accomplishment from a nascent watchmaker whose provenance was a fraction of the industry’s oldest, most storied brands: the Octo Finissimo an ultra-thin, super-refined variant of the larger Octo.

When I spoke to the house’s watch designer Fabrizio Buonamassa Stigliani in 2014, the world was still coming to terms with what they had just witnessed and now, what Bvlgari was presenting, was a creation that was creating yet another seismic shift in market perception. “Bvlgari used to be a jeweller who made interesting watches from time to time. Today, we can honestly say Bvlgari is a watchmaker and it’s not marketing language. The Octo Finissimo Tourbillon is the world’s thinnest tourbillon.”