Bulgari Finissimo Family

“Finissimo” is the name for a group of ultra-thin watch movements from Bulgari. The company set a new world record for thin movements each year for six years with various members of the family. Although not based on the same design or sharing many components, the movement family is notable for this shared vision and heritage. The Octo Finissimo was launched in 2014, two years after the Octo line, and has remained a trend-setter ever since.

The first member of the Finissimo family was Cal. BVL 268, used in the legendary Octo Finissimo Tourbillon in 2014. Measuring just 1.95 mm thick, this movement was notable for using ball bearings rather than jewels, supporting the wheel train similarly to the famous Delirium family of movements. Cal. 268 had just 11 jewels, far less than other haute horology movements, and the novel construction of the winding barrel allowed it to reach 55 hours power reserve.

A conventional three-handed Octo Finissimo was also added in 2014. Boasting a 5.15 mm thin case, it included the new 2.23 mm thin Cal. BVL 128 hand-winding movement. Novel features include a small seconds subdial at 7:30 on the dial and a power reserve indicator on the rear.

The next Octo Finissimo was the 2016 Minute Repeater. Introduced at Baselworld, it uses Cal. BVL 362, which measures just 3.12 mm thick. Nearly as thin as the historic Vacheron Constantin Hour Lounge, it was easily the thinnest minute repeater movement in modern history.

Baselworld 2017 saw the introduction of the world’s thinnest automatic watch, sporting the world’s thinnest automatic movement. Cal. BVL 138 measured just 2.23 mm thick, narrowly beating Piaget’s 2.35 mm Altiplano movement, and sat in the 5.15 mm thick Octo Finissimo Automatic. It achieved this through the use of a micro rotor but without the exotic ball bearing supports of the original tourbillon.

The 2018 edition of the Bulgari catalog included the thinnest automatic tourbillon ever produced, which was also the thinnest tourbillon or automatic! The Octo Finissimo Tourbillon Automatic includes the 1.95 mm Cal. BVL 288 in a 3.95 mm thin case.

The fifth Finissimo to set a world record was the Octo Finissimo Chronograph GMT. Introduced at Baselworld in 2019, Cal. BVL 318 measures just 3.3 mm thick despite automatic winding (via a peripheral rotor), a column wheel chronograph (with space-saving horizontal clutch), and a GMT hand.

The 2020 entry in the Octo Finissimo line is the Tourbillon Chronograph Skeleton Automatic, a remarkable watch that is the thinnest tourbillon chronograph available. Cal. BVL 388 measures just 3.5 mm thick in a 7.4 mm case. It uses a peripheral winding rotor like the 2018 Cal. BVL 288 Tourbillon Automatic but adds a number of complications. It is a monopusher chronograph, using the pusher at 2:00 to start, stop, and reset, with the pusher at 4:00 used to stop the winding rotor to switch the function of the crown as on the previous model. It has a new tourbillon (not flying) and a different chronograph mechanism from the 2019 Chronograph GMT model with a horizontal clutch and column wheel.