[Interview] Fabrizio Bonamassa Stigliani, Senior Director of the Bvlgari Watch Design Center

Fabrizio Bonamassa Stigliani, who oversees Bvlgari's watch design, visited Japan for the first time in a while and spoke about the current state of the Octo Finissimo, which continues to challenge itself.

Discover the true value of Manufacture Bvlgari in Eight Days

Fabrizio Bonamassa Stigliani
Fabrizio Bonamassa Stigliani heads Bvlgari's watch design department. Born in Naples, Italy in 1971, he graduated from the University of Rome's Industrial Design School and joined Fiat in 98. He later went independent and established his own design studio in 2005. Since then, he has joined Bvlgari and revamped its product design. Originally an industrial designer, he has also focused on Métiers d'Art in recent years. His representative works include the Octo, Octo Finissimo, and Serpenti.

"In developing the Octo Finissimo Skeleton Eight Days, which was a highlight of the Geneva Watch Days, we redesigned the movement. When comparing it with existing skeleton models, you can see that it looks like a completely new movement, including the shape of the bridges."

　But in fact, he says, it's an improved version of an existing movement.

"It's based on an existing skeleton movement, but we've actually redesigned the baseplate and bridges, so it will look completely different."

　The power reserve display is a symbol of this. "With the Eight Days, we have also changed the power reserve display. We have adopted a completely new display method that has not been seen in previous Octo Finissimo models. Instead of adding a counter as before, we have changed it to display the power reserve on the outer periphery of the small seconds hand."

　He repeatedly sketched out the changes to the power reserve display. He then returned to the Octo Finissimo design codes and reconstructed the design by incorporating the pure elements that Finissimo originally had while making use of the existing movement structure. In other words, the movement itself of the Octo Finissimo Skeleton Eight Days was a challenge. The biggest challenge was achieving the long power reserve, as the model name suggests.

"We enlarged the barrel to achieve a power reserve of approximately eight days. In addition, we redesigned the gear train to improve power transmission efficiency, which makes it rotate more slowly than the previous movement."

　Specifically, the larger barrel allowed for a longer mainspring.

"The mainspring is approximately 720mm long, but the thickness of the mainspring remains the same. Another challenge for us was finding space in the movement to accommodate the larger barrel needed to accommodate this longer mainspring."

　The true value of Manufacture Bvlgari lies in the technical and design capabilities that allow it to develop and improve the movement itself to introduce new expressions, such as openwork and an original power reserve display, to the brand's iconic Octo Finissimo.