Introducing: The Bulgari Aluminium & Aluminium Chronograph (Live Pics & Pricing)
Bulgari has established itself as a serious leader over the last few years when it comes to making sleek, lightweight sport watches. The Octo Finissimo is one of the most iconic new watches of the last decade, and I don’t use that term lightly at all. That’s not the only arrow in the Roman design house’s quiver though, and its got plenty of history to draw from as well. Sometimes that means dipping back into la dolce vita of the 1960s, but it can also mean looking back to the end of the last millennium, when Bulgari was experimenting with different materials and working on refreshing its design language for the years ahead. What we’ve got today is a trio of thin, lightweight sport watches that look to some late-90s pieces for inspiration, but with a bunch of important updates.
The Bulgari Aluminium and Aluminium Chronograph are reinterpretations of a watch that Bulgari first launched back in 1998 that combined aluminum cases, rubber straps, and quartz movements to create a different kind of luxury watch. It might seem commonplace today, but presenting a non-precious-metal watch on a rubber strap as a luxury watch was still pretty revolutionary in the late ’90s. Remember, this is before brands like Hublot and Richard Mille convinced people that old definitions of luxury aren’t the only definitions. The new models we’re getting today (two variations on the time-and-date and a panda dial chronograph) build on that foundation, but with a new, more durable aluminum alloy for the cases, the proprietary Bulgari-style rubber bracelet, and mechanical movements. Aesthetically, they’re very much in line with their forebearers, but the technical updates are the big news.
For the time-and-date Aluminium, we’ve got a 40mm case with a sandblasted finish and a matte black rubber bezel. Bulgari has not provided details on this new aluminum alloy, but says that it’s more resistant to wear – aluminum is light, but soft, so it can be vulnerable to scratches and dents. With basically no polished surfaces in sight, the watches are pretty understated, minus all the Bulgari logos (more on that in a minute), and look great in the summer sunshine. The red accents on the seconds hand add a bit of color, and the oversized sans serif “12” and “6” at the poles add some punch too. The watch has …read more
