Small Talk JEAN-CHRISTOPHE BABIN
The CEO of Bulgari tells us about yet another record-breaking watch, as well as how the brand approaches NFTS differently
Let’s talk about the recordbreaking thinness of the 1.8mm-thick Octo Finissimo Ultra.
It has opened a totally new field in terms of mechanical watchmaking. [The case] is thinner than a €2 coin, with 170 components within that space. The components all have to be laid on the same plane, and it requires very skilled master watchmakers to achieve this. It’s revolutionary, but also very accurate.
Since we invented Finissimo eight years ago, we had developed seven different movements, but they were all based on the same philosophy. The major breakthrough has been about erasing all these memories, and the approach was to flip to a blank page and think, how do we make this watch not just a bit thinner, but a lot thinner? This hasn't been a technical challenge so much as a psychological and cultural challenge.
Tell us about the “phygital” aspect of this watch.
On the one hand, it is an amazing mechanical masterpiece, but it has been designed also to connect, for the first time ever in the watchmaking industry, to a digital world in the metaverse. It’s the most advanced digital watch on the market, as this is the only one which takes you directly from the physical timepiece into the metaverse, where you can access all the technical data: the watch warranty certificate, the authenticity certificate, the logbook of your watch maintenances, as well as video assets on the watchmaking process. Last but not least, it provides you access to an artistic NFT, stored on the blockchain, which goes together with the watch you buy.
To access the metaverse is simple: you can just use your mobile phone to scan the barrel, which takes you to a website, which displays all of the [aforementioned] assets. This signifies a new generation of Octo Finissimo; you cannot compare it directly to the existing Finissimo models.
How is this different from what other watch brands are doing with NFTS?
The challenge was whether or not we should do a 3D version of this watch and propose it as an NFT because this was what other brands were doing. And the answer was absolutely not, because there is no value. No, let's create a real piece of art inspired by this watch.
[Product creation executive director] Fabrizio Buonamassa designed, with the help of young geeks, a 90-second movie, which can be framed beautifully in your living room. It really is a piece of cool contemporary art, which you can decide to have as a still picture, or in motion, and change it every day. It was about thinking outside the box and not just reproducing a 3D artwork for a watch that already exists [in real life].