Haute horlogerie maison Bvlgari has music and sound at the heart of its latest collection unveiled recently at Geneva Watch Days. The Sound of Bvlgari offered new editions of the Octo Roma, Octo Finissimo, Bvlgari Aluminium, and the Serpenti Pallini. Fabrizo Buonamassa Stigliani, Director of the Bvlgari Watches Design Center, sat down with us to talk about the latest chimers from Bvlgari
Why did Bvlgari choose Symphony as its main theme for Geneva Watch Days Men’s collection?
It is because a number of our watches are created around music this year. For instance, the Serpenti Pallini High Jewellery watch is conceptualised around the sound of jewellery. We completely redesigned the body and the head of the Serpenti Pallini. The Serpenti Pallini houses a Piccolissimo movement unlike the earlier Serpenti Pallini, which had a quartz movement with a very long head. With the new Piccolissimo movement, we had to revisit all the Serpenti heads and after that realised that the body was too big for the resized head, so we decided to redesign the whole watch. When you wear our new Pallini and move your wrist, you can hear the sound of the jewellery.
We have two new chiming watches – the Octo Roma Carillon Tourbillon and the Octo Roma Grande Sonnerie Tourbillon that we created with Lorenzo Viotti, our Brand Ambassador, who is currently the conductor for the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, and the Dutch National Opera. He met and worked with our manufacturing team to achieve these results.
The fourth watch is our collaboration – the Bvlgari Aluminium GMT x Fender Limited Edition – with Fender. Fender, as everyone knows, is one of the most iconic brands in the music world. When you see all the watches on the table at Geneva Watch Days, you realise that music is common to the whole collection. It’s interesting because it’s the same people around the table who designed and produced the Serpenti, the Aluminium, and the Grande Sonnerie. We have found three different ways to talk about the same topic for the same brand – at different price points. The Aluminium doesn’t make sound, but the idea was to play with an iconic musical brand.
The two new Octo Romas are in collaboration with Mr Lorenzo; why him and what is the benefit of that collaboration?
We chose to work with Lorenzo because he is our Brand Ambassador for watches. He also works with our fragrance division for perfumes. When we met Lorenzo for the first time two years ago, we asked his opinion on our chiming watches. We asked him, “We have a lot of chiming watches and, for us, our chiming watches sound like a musical instrument, but we are not musicians. You are a professional music director; could you help us make this more interesting?” Lorenzo told us that he was not aware of chiming watches, so we showed him the watches and how they work, which is slightly similar to musical instruments because they feature the gongs and the hammers. We wanted to discuss melody with him.
He explained that with this combination of hammers and gongs, you could have a different melody even if you use the same notes again. I don’t think any of us was able to imagine getting something different each time by using the same notes. As a brand, we have to do different things as well as think in a different way. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have the Serpenti or the Finissimo on the market. We understood that with these notes, we could create a different melody. We could have a different signature sound. Our Master Watchmakers started working on the project with him because, in the end, the Grande Sonnerie is a very technical product. We could design the most beautiful dial but if the sound is not good, nobody would be interested.
I think these are the most beautiful Octo Romas that we have designed, and the sound of the Carillon and the Grande Sonnerie are honestly amazing. The team has changed the position of the hammer and the tourbillon cage. They also changed the centrifuge because the earlier one was so noisy. We now have a very slim case, 45 millimetres, and when you wear the watches, they look perfect. We are very happy about the results.
Bvlgari is one of the very few brands that offers all three types of chiming watches; why is it so important for the brand?
It’s important because this way we have our own melody; otherwise, the Westminster Carillon is the same one that other brands use. We have collectors who collect only chiming watches; it’s very important that we give this kind of collector a different sound. Yesterday I spent 1.5 hours with one of the collectors talking about the design of the case, the sound, the hammers, and the melody and he ended up hearing the watch chime several times. It’s like everybody sings the same song and then we arrive and, with the same note, sing something different – a different song.
While the Octo Roma Grande Sonnerie Tourbillon is crafted from titanium, the Octo Roma Carillon Tourbillon is of rose gold, and the Octo Finissimo Minute Repeater from multi-layered Carbon Thin Ply; how did Bvlgari manage to get such clear sounds with three different material cases?
The movement is strong enough to have a very interesting sound in all three different materials. The carbon is very crispy because it’s very strong, very light. The titanium is a different alloy, as is the gold. While the sound of the gold is very smooth, the sound of the titanium is great in terms of sharpness. A lot of people love the sound of the carbon, while some others love the sound of the titanium. The movement is the same and the manufacturing team has done an excellent job as we have paid attention to the quality of the sound. We don’t use material that doesn’t work well with the chiming watches. For example, we tried with a ceramic case, but it didn’t sound good.
How did the collaboration with Fender come about?
The watch and the guitar are unique objects that create an emotional link with the user. We had never discussed about music in our history; we started to think about music and, thanks to Lorenzo and the Grande Sonnerie, the history of the music in this period came to our attention and we decided it would be interesting to collaborate with someone who makes musical instruments. My father was in love with the guitar because he was part of a band when he was young, and I grew up with guitars at home. One of the first pictures of the Aluminium on the Bvlgari brochure portrayed a gentleman who played with the mixer in a music studio. The Fender was the first brand that we thought of, and we decided to make something with Fender. Around 99% of the most important riffs in the world of rock music are made with the Fender guitars used by different players. This is true of jazz and other forms of music too. The Fender Stratocaster was played by Bruce Springsteen, Lenny Kravitz, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, and so on. Our watch is a mechanical watch; the electric guitar is not 100% mechanical but is still made by hand and it’s created with the same passion of making something very unique for the client.
