Bulgari Octo Finissimo Ultra is so thin it practically disappears

While phone makers have largely recovered from their obsession with thinness (Vivo’s 4.75mm X5 Max from 2014 still holds the record today) high-end watchmakers still have the bug – and Bulgari’s Octo Finissimo Ultra COSC proves it.

At just 1.7mm thick – that’s about the same as a strand of spaghetti – the Octo Finissimo Ultra shaves 0.05mm off the previous thinnest model. That might not seem like much, but when you’re dealing with such slim margins, a tenth of a millimetre can be record-breakingly significant.

With so little space to play with, pretty much all of the watch’s 170 components are arranged on one layer, assembled directly on a tough tungsten carbide main plate, with the ratchet wheel visible in the top-left, alongside separate dials for hours, minutes, and seconds. And to make sure it doesn’t crumple like tin foil when you take it off, the lugs, bezel, 40mm case and bracelet (which, at 1.5mm, is actually even thinner) are all made of titanium.

It’s such a fiddly job, each one takes about a week to put together, which, considering the asking price is a whopping €600,000, works out at about €3571.42 per hour (or much more if you assume they’re not working 24/7). Some of your cash also goes towards building the box that each one comes in, which automatically winds and adjusts the watch at the touch of a button.

Bulgari has also managed to secure chronometer certification for the Octo Finissimo Ultra (that’s what the COSC bit stands for: Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres), which means it’s passed a series of tests to make sure it remains accurate.

The battle to hold the record for the world’s thinnest mechanical watch has been raging for a decade now, with Bulgari and Piaget trading blows for most of that time, although Richard Mille had held the title since 2022 with its 1.75mm Calibre RMUP-01 Ferrari.

Only time will tell what the response to the Bulgari Octo Finissimo Ultra will be, but only 20 of them have been made, so owning one isn’t just a case of finding the cash. There’s also an equally rare Octo Finissimo Ultra Platinum that has blue hour and minute dials, but at a relatively chunky 1.8mm, it’s pretty 2022.

• Read more: Best new watches at Watches and Wonders 2024

Tom Wiggins Contributor

About

Stuff's second Tom has been writing for the magazine and website since 2006, when smartphones were only for massive nerds and you could say “Alexa” out loud without a robot answering. Over the years he’s written about everything from MP3s to NFTs, played FIFA with Trent Alexander-Arnold, and amassed a really quite impressive collection of USB sticks.

Areas of expertise

A bit of everything but definitely not cameras.