Q&ABulgari Watches’ Managing Director Antoine Pin On Breaking World Records And Bringing Aluminium Back
At the first ever Geneva Watch Days, Bulgari invited us to a Zoom press conference to showcase their 2020 releases. Here are excerpts from Antoine Pin’s introduction to the latest novelties, including various insights into the creation of Bulgari’s iconic products
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On Consistently Creating World Records
I’m going to immediately get into it. You know, we’ve got this bad habit of trying to present a world record every time there is an international event. And Geneva Watch Days isn’t any different. We are introducing this new chronograph-tourbillon Octo Finissimo. This is a single-push chronograph with a tourbillon. The lower pusher is for time adjustment. It’s a totally new movement constructed on the basis of the Octo Finissimo Tourbillon, and last year’s chronograph GMT. It sounds simple, but in reality, it means deconstructing and reconstructing the complete movement—a project three years in the making, and an integration of some of the innovations we’ve presented in the past. For instance, a key feature is the peripheral rotor—in order to have an automatic skeleton movement, which in itself is quite rare. It also allows us to maintain the extreme slimness of 3.5mm. And there is no direct connection between the crown and the movement, so it’s connected through a bridge. There’s a lot of creativity in the mechanical approach.
These developments out here are extremely painful to develop and to create. They’re not simply additions of elements on past models. The two reasons why we do this is because it takes time to convey the message of our leadership in micromechanics. Secondly, creating new masterpieces allows us to affirm our positioning, and let’s say our contribution to the Swiss watch industry. That’s very important, but it’s also a little bit of an addiction. We’ve built a culture inside our company with a strong mission to look for new creative solutions to achieve these new developments. As such, we develop an expertise in the understanding of materials, constructions, and so on. Internally, we bring in talent that is attracted to these quests. It’s like a snowball effect. The more we develop this expertise that we want to really master, the more we attract talent and interest for the work that we’re doing. With this, the appetite for new extremes is growing. It can take up to five years to develop a new project. But I’m sorry to tell you, we will come with new world records in the future.
Still, I’ll say ‘fingers crossed’, because it’s easier said than done, and there are always obstacles. It’s not a continuous flow of development. It’s a stop-and-go process, where you finding an obstacle in terms of precision, friction, transmission of energy, and you need to sort it out and then you move to the next step. So until the product is presented to the market, there is no guarantee that we can actually deliver. There’s excitement in that as well. As I said, it’s really addictive.
On The Miniaturisation And Micromechanics
Philosophically, as a jeweller, we love to have small movements, which allow us to be more creative, and to propose crazier products when it comes to ladies’ watches. As you know, we introduced the smallest tourbillon in the world in January. The mastering of smaller movement allows us to progressively develop horlogerie for ladies pieces. I must say mention the success we encountered with this watch. The first batch of production is actually fully sold. It confirms our conviction that the market for complications for ladies is very important. The demand exists and the interest is there. And for us, it’s an amazing playing field because we can exercise our talents as a jeweller and as a watchmaker.
In the Octo Finissimo Tourbillon Chronograph Skeleton, the extra complexity stems from the extreme slimness of all the components and therefore the bridges and the plates. The thinner we go, the higher the risk of disconnection between the components when subjected to a shock. In order to overcome this obstacle, we work towards mastering the absorption of shock. This is related to the physical nature of the metals that we are using for our bridges and plates. Lower the density, greater the absorption of shock.
On The Process Of Developing World Records
There’s something beautiful about working for a company like Bulgari. When you meet founders of certain companies, such as Richard Mille, Max Büsser, etc—people who have become very famous in the industry—are basically the creative directors, both from a design perspective and from a technical, watchmaking perspective. At Bulgari, there is a team of people. We have Fabrizio (Buonamassa Stigliani) as the artistic director, and we have super constructors. In a one-person show, the design and the construction would immediately be integrated. This here is more complicated; there is more teamwork. There is constant interaction, where we review our timelines even. We have plans for 2022-23, which are already in progress, but there are complexities along the way that are neither planned nor expected. And then it’s really a question of problem solving—very much like doing experiments. The planning of movements is constantly changing. Some projects may be postponed while others are accelerating. There are roughly 10 to 15 projects that are moving in parallel.
We have this kind of fusion work that is happening constantly. People come up with ideas for new projects and then the discussion starts, and sometimes ideas are added to existing projects. For example, when we were working on last year’s ‘thinnest automatic chronograph in the world’, the team had this idea of combining it with a GMT—resulting in two very modern complications combined. They were confident it would not impact the thickness, and that’s how the Octo Finissimo Chronograph GMT Automatic came about.
So you see, it’s a bubbling process—a rolling process. There is no priority or privilege given to any one department to come up with ideas. And we encourage freedom of speech. Anyone can ask questions, there are no stupid questions. We give a lot of confidence to the whole team. And the marketing teams are involved very early, because they share news about the market, and I want them to start their preparation work early in the development process. It helps them tell better stories surrounding the development.
On Bringing Aluminium Back
As a jeweller, we like to build long-lasting relationships with our clients. However, developing the Octo line year after year, pushes us into the world of very, very premium watches—and there are clients who can spend $200,000 on a watch. However, there are younger people who can’t afford a $10,000 watch. So after years of talking about it, we felt it was time to bring the light back to another product that would totally bare our values. The beauty of our portfolio is that it’s made of pieces that are strong signatures for our brand. So we looked to our own history and at a watch that’s been under the radar—the Bulgari Bulgari Aluminium. It was a real icon, recognised for its structure, for its bracelet with rubber links, for the use of aluminium, which was a real premiere in the late 90s, and for the black-and-white design—a very pure deal. The round shape integrated with the bracelet and immediately became a signature piece in the industry. It was like a tsunami coming out of Italy. All the wealthy Italian travellers would buy this watch for weekends on the beach, in the boats. It was a casual-chic expression of Italian style.
This new design very much follows the initial 90s design because—and I’m just quoting Fabrizio, our creative director—“You need to respect icons, and icons don’t age!” The same goes for the aluminium watches. If you try to transform it, you lose the genius of the product. So we respected the initial design. At the same time, there is not one component that is exactly the same as what was made then, because you don’t produce a proper watch today the way it was produced 20 years ago. Technically, the rubber is not the same. The aluminium is not the same. The structure is in titanium. The push-buttons and the crowns are in titanium. The movement is automatic, not quartz. The case is produced internally in our manufacture. The rubber is the same that we use for our Octo watches. These watches are not the same price as the Octos, but, as I said, we want to integrate our clients at an earlier age.
This product may be cheaper than our other watches, but the spirit of Bulgari comes through with it. And we’re very proud of bringing it back. I love it, as a product not just for the suave Italian man, but even for ladies.
On Working With A Soft Metal Like Aluminium
As I said previously, the watch is the same, but totally different. We had the experience of the past collection, and we found that the watches used to scratch easily. So the easy answer would have been to not use aluminium. But then, we’d have to go back to a different style. Conversely, aluminium has lightness and the fact that we can stamp it and use it in different ways, and we even liked the sophistication of this material. Fortunately, the development of aluminium (alloys) has been massive over the last 20 years. And this question of resistance to scratches was addressed. And you’ve got tens of different alloys that we can use today. The aluminium that we use is the 6082—an alloy that is far sturdier than that which we used before. And because of its natural scratch resistance, it can also be anodised—a treatment on the surface that reinforces the resistance of the alloy. So compared with the previous alloy that we were using, this one is naturally more scratch resistant and it is also protected. It will not have the resistance of steel, obviously, since it is aluminium, but it is much more resistant than the aluminium we used before. And the same goes for the rubber. We also use less aluminium than in the past. Certain elements, such as the caseback and crown, are in titanium.
On Watches Garnering Unisex Appeal
I’m not in favour of promoting a product as a product for everyone, because if you’re for everyone, you’re for nobody! I think there is always an intention that we have for each product. But I love the idea that our clients distort our intentions. And of course, the watches are for anyone who appreciates them. We are very happy that women like the watches we present as men’s watches. Especially with the Octo, we can’t make the watches small enough to be a ‘ladies’ watch’ so to speak. If we make very thin calibres, we need to occupy space on two dimensions. So the diameters of our all of our Finissimo calibres are large. Obviously the watch fits larger wrists than average, and therefore naturally meets the conventional dimensions of men’s watches. We do see more and more women who wear the watch because it’s extremely comfortable. There is also a clear willingness of a certain clientele to purchase masculine watches with a very strong character. And this is not a new trend. We’ve seen it in the 70s, thanks to the likes of Yves Saint Laurent [and their advertising], where there was this kind of cross-gender appropriation of products, which I always find interesting and sexy. So there’s no problem with it.
We’ve produced and created watches for more than 100 years and probably this is not necessarily known. But the first watches in our catalogue date back to 1918, so we are quite an old watchmaker—not a movement maker though; a watchmaker. However, everything was all about ladies watches until after the war. But then, the development of Bulgari in the 80s and the 90s was primarily through men’s watches. And clearly even today, the legitimacy of the watchmaker comes from the development of men’s watches, made with big calibres, because complexity implies large-sized calibres. Because, say, for instance, to do a chiming watch in a small and thin case is difficult. We did it with the Diva collection, and it was loved, but it was very complicated to execute.
As I said, there’s no necessary gender restriction, but the notion of performance and world records does tend to appeal more to the masculine than feminine clientele. On the other hand, ladies tend to appreciate the development on the design side more—including the stunning watches from the Serpenti family, which are unbelievably unique and a true expression of a jeweller. Yet, early mechanical developments for Bulgari started with the Diagono watches and the aluminium watches that were basically design statements before becoming horological statements. The integration of Gérald Genta and Daniel Roth made us ‘Bulgari, the watchmaker’. Today, we have this extraordinary know-how from a watchmaking perspective, clearly anchored in the masculine world. And we have this soul of a jeweller, which is more dedicated to a feminine clientele.
I can tell you we had fun developing the tourbillon Seprenti Seduttori, and owning this territory of high-end watchmaking achievements for ladies, because it is representative of our two know-hows. And we will continue to push ourselves in both directions.
