Designer Watches Slim Down

"We looked at ultrathin watches, and they were all expressions of traditional aesthetics born in the 1950s and 1960s," says Guido Terreni, managing director of Bulgari's watchmaking division "Basically, people today are wearing watches of their grandfathers' era." Bulgari's primary goal was to make a modern ultrathin watch intended for everyday wear When Bulgari purchased boutique brands Daniel Roth and Gerald Genta in 2000, it acquired their technical knowhow, endowing the company with the expertise to approach ultrathin watches with Bulgari's characteristic Italian flair.

"We were looking at ultrathin watches as a statement of beauty and elegance." Since you cannot simply outsource an ultrathin movement, Bulgari applied its newfound technical expertise to develop them internally A few months before Bulgari unveiled its record-thin automatic tourbillon, Piaget-which introduced its first ultrathin 9P movement in 1957-debuted the Altiplano Ultimate Automatic 910P, touting a new, albeit short-lived, world record of 4.3-mm thick Just as computers and television screens keep getting slimmer as they advance, ultrathin watches represent a technical benchmark in the industry. Source