A Class Above

Bulgari goes for gold with its latest Octo Finissimo novelties launched at this year's Geneva Watch Days

- Annabel Tan

Now into its third year, Geneva Watch Days has become a highly anticipated key event in the annual calendar of luxury watch affairs. It has gone from strength to strength since its launch in 2020 during the pandemic-which disrupted the usual programming of watch events with 35 participating brands this year, compared to just 16 in its inaugural edition.

Bulgari, one of the fair's founding brands, once again held a physical presentation of its new timepieces this year at The Ritz-Carlton Hotel de la Paix, Geneva, as well as a digital one via Zoom. Given that this year is also the 10th anniversary of its Octo collection, it was no surprise that the Italian luxury house launched five new additions to the Octo Finissimo range, with most of them wrought in gold.

"Bulgari has achieved many major innovations with the Octo Finissimo, but this time, we wanted to address something that was missing from the collection," says Bulgari CEO Jean‑Christophe Babin. “We started with titanium watches, which only addressed a small group of collectors, as it’s not a mainstream material. Then, we introduced steel to better appeal to the masses. Obviously, gold, which is the most precious and makes up 50 per cent of the watch industry in terms of value, was missing.”