Watches And Wonders 2026: Bvlgari Made The Octo Finissimo Smaller. Somehow, It Got Bigger

Bvlgari's second year at Watches & Wonders and they've already figured out how to use the fair. Last year was the arrival. This year is the statement. The Roman maison introduced a new movement, a world-record platinum watch, four Serpenti expressions, a jewelry capsule rooted in the 1970s, and a blockchain-powered digital passport quietly engraved on every watch they've made since 2020. That's a wide net, but there's a thread running through all of it: Bvlgari is doing what it has always done — taking things that already exist and making them uncomfortably good.

The Octo Finissimo is the clearest example. Since 2014, the collection has set 10 world records for thinness across various complications and materials. This year, the case shrinks from 40mm to 37mm, the movement is entirely new, and the result is a watch that weighs 65 grams total and disappears under a shirt cuff. The question Bvlgari is answering in 2026 isn't whether they can go thinner — they've proved that repeatedly. The question is whether they can go smaller without losing the architectural identity that makes the Octo Finissimo worth caring about. The answer, based on what they've presented, is yes.

Octo Finissimo 37mm: A New Movement, A New Proportion
The 37mm Octo Finissimo is not a scaled-down version of the 40mm. It's a clean-sheet development that took three years to engineer, and the movement at its centre — the BVF 100 — is the proof. At 2.35mm thick with a diameter of just 31mm, the calibre achieves a 20% reduction in volume compared to the movement inside the 40mm, despite being a marginal 0.12mm thicker. That sounds counterintuitive until you understand that miniaturisation in watchmaking isn't just about making things flatter — it's about rethinking how every component relates to every other component within a smaller footprint. Bvlgari drew on three years of development work done for Serpenti's Piccolissimo and Solotempo ladies' movements to make this happen. That institutional knowledge mattered. The BVF 100 is automatic, wound by a micro-rotor — the right choice here, since a full-sized rotor would have dominated the visual real estate of a 31mm movement. Power reserve is 72 hours, which is genuinely competitive at this thickness level. The finishing is hand-decorated with radiating Côtes de Genève — a more demanding technique than the straight Geneva stripes you see on most movements, because the radiating pattern requires individual attention to each zone. The new octagonal screw profile is a small detail that most people will never notice and that Bvlgari's engineers clearly spent more time on than was strictly necessary. That's the right instinct.

The bracelet integration has also been reworked. The case-to-bracelet junction is now secured with a screw-fastening system — precise, rattle-free, and built to work consistently across different materials and finishes. The clasp uses push-button operation. The whole package at 37mm weighs 65 grams, which means you will forget you're wearing it, which is either a selling point or an anxiety depending on how you feel about expensive things. The 37mm Octo launches in four references: sandblasted titanium, satin-polished titanium, 18-carat yellow gold, and a Minute Repeater in sandblasted titanium powered by the BVL 362 calibre. The titanium versions beat at 3Hz / 21,600 vph with 72 hours of power reserve. The Minute Repeater shares the same case dimensions and power reserve, running the same frequency, but the movement is manually wound and 3.12mm thick — the acoustic properties of sandblasted titanium, a material Bvlgari has used deliberately for repeater cases before, help the sound carry cleanly.

Octo Finissimo Ultra Tourbillon Platinum: The Tenth Record Gets a New Coat
The Octo Finissimo Ultra Tourbillon set the 10th world record for thinness in 2025 at 1.85mm total thickness — making it the world's thinnest flying tourbillon. The titanium version that achieved that record was awarded at the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève last year. For 2026, Bvlgari has rebuilt the same watch in platinum, and that's considerably harder than it sounds.
Platinum's density is roughly 60% greater than titanium's. Working it at ultra-thin tolerances requires dedicated tooling and specific expertise — it's strong, but its ductility means it behaves differently under pressure than titanium does. Getting the same 1.85mm total case thickness in platinum, without compromising structural integrity or finishing quality, is a real engineering challenge. 

The resulting case and integrated bracelet combine satin-brushed and polished surfaces, with blue accents on the skeletonised dial via a dedicated galvanic treatment. A steel ratchet wheel provides visual contrast against the platinum architecture. It's a 10-piece limited edition, powered by the hand-wound BVF 900 flying tourbillon calibre, 42 hours of power reserve at 4Hz. For collectors, the distinction between the titanium original and this platinum edition isn't arbitrary. Platinum occupies a specific place in the hierarchy of watchmaking materials — rarer, denser, historically associated with the most serious pieces in a collection. The fact that Bvlgari can hold the same thinness record in platinum as it did in titanium is, technically, a more impressive achievement. Ten pieces in the world.

Serpenti Tubogas Studs Capsule: Gold, Steel, and a Stud from the Archive
The Serpenti Tubogas has been around since the 1940s. The Tubogas technique — fine metal bands wound with precise tension to create a supple, flexible bracelet — became a Bvlgari hallmark through the 1970s, and it was in that same decade that the maison began pairing gold with steel, a combination that the jewellery world considered unlikely and Bvlgari considered obvious. That particular audacity is the foundation of this capsule. The stud — a pyramidal element drawn from Bvlgari's jewellery archive — has been introduced onto the Tubogas bracelet body. Five studs per bracelet, either polished or diamond-set, punctuating the coiled metalwork at regular intervals. The visual effect is somewhere between jewellery and industrial design, which is exactly where Bvlgari has always been most comfortable. The four references cover a meaningful range: a full yellow gold version with carnelian dial and diamond-set studs; a mother-of-pearl bicolor in steel and yellow gold; a sodalite version in steel and rose gold; and a malachite dial in steel and yellow gold. The case across all four is 35mm, quartz-powered for hours and minutes, with 38 brilliant-cut diamonds on the bezel (0.3ct) and a pink rubellite cabochon on the crown.

These are jewelry watches, the quartz movement is not the point, the construction and the stone pairing is. The carnelian version's studs alone carry 60 brilliant-cut diamonds across five faces. The sodalite and malachite versions do the same in rose gold. Bvlgari has been pairing hardstones with precious metal since the 1970s and they haven't lost the instinct for which combinations work.

Serpenti Aeterna: 470 Hours of Work, On Your Wrist
The Serpenti Aeterna is Bvlgari's most abstracted version of the Serpenti archetype, stripped of literal reptilian detail, reduced to a curve, a tension, a continuous line around the wrist. This year it arrives in two expressions: the rose gold multi-stone version and, for the first time, yellow gold with a mother-of-pearl dial.

The rose gold piece is the more demanding of the two. It carries 493 brilliant-cut diamonds (5.0ct), 122 coloured stones totalling 13 carats, rubellite, amethyst, topaz, emerald, citrine, pink sapphire, tanzanite, Paraíba tourmaline, tsavorite, spessartite, aquamarine, blue sapphire, and peridot, plus a single brilliant-cut blue sapphire at 0.2ct on the crown. Getting those 122 coloured stones into a composition that reads as coherent rather than chaotic took 185 hours of selection and preparation alone. Development was 225 hours. Setting exceeded 60 hours. The hexagonal openwork scales on the inside of the bracelet bathe the stones in transmitted light, creating transparency effects that change with movement. The case is 24mm curved rose gold with a pavé diamond dial. The yellow gold version is the quieter statement, white mother-of-pearl dial, 68 brilliant-cut diamonds on the bracelet (0.56ct), diamond-set crown. It exists for the wearer who wants the Aeterna silhouette without the full chromatic intensity of the coloured stone version.

The Digital Passport: The Datamatrix Gets a Consumer Face
Since 2020, every Bvlgari watch has left the manufacture with a Datamatrix, an encrypted 2D code, engraved on the caseback. It was an internal traceability tool. Nobody told customers about it because there was nothing for customers to do with it. That changes now.

The Bvlgari Digital Passport, built on Aura Blockchain technology, turns that existing engraving into a gateway. Scan the caseback with the Bvlgari Touch app (iOS and Android), and you pull up that specific watch's digital record: technical specifications, warranty information, authenticity confirmation, traceability data, and editorial content about the piece. No login required. No personal data collected. The blockchain layer means the record is immutable - it can't be edited or falsified after the fact, which matters for authenticity verification and secondary market confidence. The practical implication is significant. Every Bvlgari watch made since 2020 already has the code. The infrastructure exists. What Bvlgari has built is the consumer-facing layer on top of it — a clean, no-friction ownership experience that arrives without asking anything of the buyer except downloading an app. For the secondary market and for provenance-conscious collectors, this is quietly one of the more useful things any maison has done at Watches & Wonders this year.

Bvlgari's 2026 is more coherent than it first appears. The Octo Finissimo 37mm and the Ultra Tourbillon Platinum are both about extreme engineering — precision miniaturisation in one case, material mastery in the other. The Serpenti pieces are about the maison's instinct for colour, stone, and the particular kind of Italian confidence that treats gold and steel as natural companions. The Digital Passport is about ownership infrastructure, the kind of unglamorous but genuinely useful innovation that makes a watch more valuable to the person who buys it. None of these things are accidents. Bvlgari knows what it is, and in 2026 it's saying so clearly.

Technical Specifications

Octo Finissimo 37mm — Sandblasted Titanium (Ref. 104089) Calibre: BVF 100, automatic with micro-rotor | Thickness: 2.35mm | Frequency: 3Hz / 21,600 vph | Power reserve: 72 hours | Functions: hours, minutes, small seconds | Finishing: hand-decorated radiating Côtes de Genève and perlage. Case: 37mm sandblasted titanium, transparent caseback, 3 ATM / 30m water resistance. Dial: Opaline titanium, black hands and indexes. Bracelet: Sandblasted titanium with push-button integrated folding clasp.

Octo Finissimo 37mm — Yellow Gold (Ref. 104120) Same calibre BVF 100 specifications. Case: 37mm satin-polished 18K yellow gold. Dial: Yellow gold with gold-plated hands and indexes. Bracelet: Satin-polished yellow gold with push-button integrated folding clasp.

Octo Finissimo 37mm — Satin-Polished Titanium (Ref. 104351) Same calibre BVF 100 specifications. Case: 37mm satin-polished titanium. Dial: Opaline titanium, rhodium-plated hands and indexes. Bracelet: Satin-polished titanium with push-button integrated folding clasp.

Octo Finissimo 37mm — Minute Repeater (Ref. 104250) Calibre: BVL 362, manual winding | Thickness: 3.12mm | Frequency: 3Hz / 21,600 vph | Power reserve: 72 hours | Functions: hours, minutes, small seconds, minute repeater with two hammers. Case: 37mm sandblasted titanium, transparent caseback, 3 ATM / 30m. Dial: Opaline titanium, rhodium grey hands, openworked indexes. Bracelet: Sandblasted titanium with push-button integrated folding clasp.

Octo Finissimo Ultra Tourbillon Platinum (Ref. 104344) Calibre: BVF 900, manual winding flying tourbillon | Frequency: 4Hz / 28,800 vph | Power reserve: 42 hours. Case: 40mm satin-polished platinum | Total thickness: 1.85mm | World's thinnest flying tourbillon. Dial: Skeletonised with blue PVD coating, steel ratchet wheel with geometric decoration. Bracelet: Satin-polished platinum, fully integrated clasp. Edition: Limited to 10 pieces.

Serpenti Tubogas Studs Capsule — Mother-of-Pearl / Steel & Yellow Gold (Ref. 104301 / 104347) Movement: Quartz | Functions: hours, minutes. Case: 35mm stainless steel, yellow gold bezel set with 38 brilliant-cut diamonds (0.3ct), yellow gold crown with cabochon pink rubellite, 30m water resistance. Dial: White mother-of-pearl, yellow gold-plated hands. Bracelet: Steel Tubogas with 5 yellow gold studs. Sizes: 135 & 145mm.

Serpenti Tubogas Studs Capsule — Carnelian / Yellow Gold (Ref. 104302) Movement: Quartz | Functions: hours, minutes. Case: 35mm yellow gold, diamond-set bezel (0.3ct), cabochon pink rubellite crown, 30m water resistance. Dial: Carnelian stone. Bracelet: Yellow gold Tubogas with 5 yellow gold studs pavé-set with 60 brilliant-cut diamonds (0.6ct). Size: 135mm.

Serpenti Tubogas Studs Capsule — Sodalite / Steel & Rose Gold (Ref. 104340 / 104346) Movement: Quartz. Case: 35mm steel, rose gold diamond-set bezel (0.3ct), cabochon pink rubellite crown, 30m water resistance. Dial: Sodalite stone. Bracelet: Rose gold and steel Tubogas with 5 rose gold diamond-set studs (0.6ct). Sizes: 135 & 145mm.

Serpenti Tubogas Studs Capsule — Malachite / Steel & Yellow Gold (Ref. 104360 / 104361) Movement: Quartz. Case: 35mm steel, yellow gold diamond-set bezel (0.3ct), cabochon pink rubellite crown, 30m water resistance. Dial: Malachite stone. Bracelet: Steel Tubogas with 5 yellow gold studs. Sizes: 135 & 145mm.

Serpenti Aeterna — Rose Gold Multi-Stone (Ref. 104312) Movement: Quartz | Functions: hours, minutes. Case: 24mm curved rose gold, diamond and sapphire-set crown. Dial: Pavé brilliant-cut diamonds. Bracelet: Rose gold set with 493 brilliant-cut diamonds (5.0ct) and 122 coloured stones (13ct total: rubellite, amethyst, topaz, emerald, citrine, pink sapphire, tanzanite, Paraíba, tsavorite, spessartite, pink tourmaline, aquamarine, blue sapphire, peridot) plus 1 blue sapphire (0.2ct). Size: 155mm.

Serpenti Aeterna — Yellow Gold / Mother-of-Pearl (Ref. 104341 / 104352) Movement: Quartz | Functions: hours, minutes. Case: 24mm curved yellow gold, crown set with 11 brilliant-cut diamonds (0.03ct). Dial: White mother-of-pearl, yellow gold-plated hands. Bracelet: Yellow gold set with 68 brilliant-cut diamonds (0.56ct). Sizes: 145 & 155mm.