The never-ending battle for ultra-thin supremacy
Mastery of ultra-thin horology is a particular source of pride for watchmakers.
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Mastery of ultra-thin horology is a particular source of pride for the watchmakers of Bulgari, which earlier this year introduced the world’s thinnest self-winding wristwatch, the Octo Finissimo Automatic.
“For us, Finissimo is really a statement,” says Fabrizio Buonamassa-Stigliani, the company’s lead watch designer. “Each is sort of a grand complication. It is the technical flagship of the brand.”
Bulgari’s recent world records — which also include thinnest wristwatch tourbillon and minute repeate — result from genuine technical achievements backed by impressive design. Yet the skillfulness and competitive spirit driving the company’s efforts are the same dynamics that have guided the creation of ultrathin pieces throughout watchmaking’s history.
Thinness and compactness have served as indicators of a watch’s technical sophistication for well over two centuries, especially after Abraham-Louis Breguet began to emphasise those qualities in his pieces at the beginning of the 19th century. Then, as now, the challenge lay in crafting components of the thinnest practical dimensions and then carefully assembling them to function properly. Aligning the wheels and ensuring the proper pressures and clearances are exponentially more difficult tasks in specialised ultra – thin movements — so much so that the work is usually performed by high-level watchmakers with expertise in complications.
“A normal [mainspring] barrel and ratchet can be adjusted in half an hour to one hour,” says John Sheridan, a master watchmaker at Bulgari’s Le Sentier manufacture. “The same mechanism on ultra-thin watches takes a day. Too much pressure can constrict the spring, and you can lose 30 degrees of amplitude in the balance just like that.”
Difficulties also increase as pieces get more complicated. The extra-thin minute repeater the brand unveiled last year takes just as long to build as a grande sonnerie, the most complex model in Bulgari’s portfolio. Of course, much depends on the quality of the parts, which are produced today by computer-numerical-control (CNC) machines that must be specially programmed and handled for such precise milling.
“It’s the same machines for producing an ultra-thin movement and regular movements,” notes Sheridan, “but the time for machining the parts is two to three times than for regular parts because the precision requirements are higher. Much of this is in the setup of the machine.”
The emphasis on handwork and adjustment in watchmaking was much more pronounced a century ago, when skilled artisans produced ultra-thin watches that might embarrass today’s top practitioners.
In 1907 — more than a quarter-century before their names would be united under a single marque — the Swiss movement maker LeCoultre produced a calibre that was an amazing 1.38 millimetres thick for French watchmaker Edmond Jaeger. Caliber 145 was produced in small numbers and just for pocket watches. Its flabbergastingly svelte dimensions (the thin – nest contemporary wrist – watch movements are 25 percent thicker) were facilitated by the large diameter of the pocket-watch movement and, to an even greater degree, the manufacturing methods of the day, which allowed skilled watchmakers to play with nearly every facet of component fabrication and assembly on an individual basis.
It was the small watch and component maker Piaget, however, that first discovered it could distinguish itself by becoming a modern specialist in ultra-thin watchmaking. Piaget’s introduction of the 2-millimetre-thick 9P manual movement in 1957 and the only slightly thicker 12P automatic movement 3 years later gave rise to a whole generation of remarkably elegant wristwatches that seemed to indelibly tie the brand to ultra-slim horology.
Piaget’s 12P incorporated the recently developed micro rotor, which wound the watch by way of a small mass recessed into the movement. Suspended by two bridges, the device fit the diminutive dimensions of the movement impeccably, and the component is often used in ultra-thin watchmaking to this day. Panache, however, was not necessarily a priority for Piaget’s designers, who deliberately favoured conventional movement architecture — an approach the company has adhered to with the new-generation ultra-thin calibres it has introduced at intervals since the late 1990s.
“The more simple and basic you are in terms of architecture on the ultra–thins, the more reliable you are,” explains Quentin Hebert, one of Piaget’s movement specialists. “That is the chief design consideration for the whole 1200 family. There are no crazy constructions. What we do have to master is the repetition of the thinness of the components from one movement to another.”
As a result, the movements for Piaget’s relaunched Altiplano models back away slightly from the extreme dimensions of the 9P and 12P in favor of improved reliability and better flexing tolerance. Despite these concessions, the brand continues to see the value in producing record-setting thin watches. Subsequent versions of the 1200 (automatic) movement have established thinness records for automatic winding, subsidiary-seconds, skeleton, and diamond-set wristwatches.
According to the company, Piaget’s efforts in ultra-thin watchmaking are driven by considerations of aesthetics and style. However, it is difficult to believe that setting a world record was not one of the primary considerations behind the radical design of 2014’s Altiplano 900P. By using the caseback as the main plate of the movement, Piaget reduced the overall thickness of the watch to just 3.65 millimetres. The brand’s engineers are also quick to point out that the architecture permitted the use of full bridging on the movement, a construction Piaget has retained for function and reliability.
Although Piaget has consistently shown an essential conservatism in movement design, Bulgari — the new lead player in the segment — will not submit to such rigid constraints. One of the two ultra-thin models it launched in 2014 was a 1.95-millimetre thick tourbillon that dispensed with traditional bridging in favour of bearing systems to support several of the wheels in the gear train as well as the tourbillon cage. This arrangement might make conservative-minded watchmakers blanch, but Bulgari shaved nearly a millimetre off the movement height of its closest competitor.
“The bearings almost need to be individually polished for perfect running,” says Sheridan, who works on these movements almost daily at the Le Sentier facility. “Each has to be adjusted so that there is no movement or play in the bearing race, yet it runs freely. It’s a very delicate adjustment.”
Alongside the 2014 tourbillon, Bulgari released a hand-wound, small-seconds model that certainly qualified as ultrathin at 5.37 mm, though it broke no records. The design of the 2.353-millimetre-thick movement, however, demonstrates the company’s ambitious planning. This year, the movement was adjusted by removing the reverse-side power-reserve indicator and replacing it with a microrotor winding mechanism.
This configuration allowed the movement to be a few hundredths of a millimetre thinner than Piaget’s 12P and the watch to present a slimmer profile than Piaget’s thinnest automatic. The margins of difference in measurement may be tiny, but insofar as they serve to demonstrate the competency of the brand’s Le Sentier facility — now managed by Jean-Yves Basin — they are hugely significant.
For every record achieved by the makers of ultrathin watches, there are many stories of movements that were never brought to market or were discarded altogether because of functionality or reliability problems. Despite this failure rate, the quest for thinness is more relevant now than ever before. As increasing numbers of collectors prefer pieces — even complicated ones — that are wearable under the cuff, the competition to save space inside the case is yielding watches that are more enjoyable and comfortable to wear on the wrist day after day.
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How the Most Rare and Valuable Watches Are Traded Among Elite Collectors
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How the Most Rare and Valuable Watches Are Traded Among Elite Collectors
Some of the world’s most interesting watches spend decades being traded privately before we learn about them.
Before social media became the lingua franca of the watch world, there were forums. And on those forums, collectors—especially collectors of vintage Rolex—often traded timepieces amongst each other.
The advent of Instagram in the early 2010s, coupled with the explosion in interest in vintage timepieces, drew attention to this corner of the watch world, and with that attention came increased competition for the finest examples. In the case of six- and seven-figure watches, high-end dealers, like James Lamdin, founder and vice president of vintage and pre-owned watches at Analog:Shift, became trusted intermediaries, negotiating sales for pieces not once or twice but often multiple times as they made the rounds of the collector community.
“There are watches out there that may not be massively rare by reference, but are by example,” Lamdin tells Robb Report. “Tropical patina, ghosted bezel, or celebrity provenance—it’s that watch. When those watches go into a collection, usually it’s with the implicit understanding that they’re valuable and people will want them from you and will make you a profit when you sell them.”
The best dealers have built relationships with collectors around the world and often have first right of refusal when those pieces come back to market. But even still, the most coveted models can still slip through their fingers.
Eric Wind, of Wind Vintage in Palm Beach, Fla., has lost and found some of the world’s most storied watches. In 2015, when he was vice president, senior specialist at Christie’s in New York, Wind came across a “super rare” 1957 Audemars Piguet Ref. 5516 perpetual calendar that had languished in rural Florida until the nephew of the original owner consigned it to Christie’s. The first perpetual calendar wristwatch to feature a leap-year indicator, the piece was one of just nine made by Audemars Piguet in the 1950s. Wind considers it “the one in the best condition.”
He showed it to one of Christie’s better-known clients, Patrick Getreid, owner of the OAK Collection, who purchased it in 2015 for $545,000. In 2023, Getreid consigned it to Christie’s in Hong Kong. That’s when Wind decided to give the piece another shot.
“I had registered to bid on it but at the last minute, I got cold feet,” Wind continues. “It was starting kind of high compared with what Getreide had paid for it. I was bidding remotely from Florida, but when no one else is bidding, you’re kind of wondering if you’re a genius or a fool. Is there something everyone else knows that I don’t? The question was about market value. The watch ended up passing and I purchased it via private sale—or private treaty, as it’s known—after the sale. I had two clients who really wanted it. I offered it to both, but one was more ready to pull the trigger and he got it. It never saw the light of day.” That Audemars Piguet perpetual calendar, Wind says, “remains one of my top five watches on the planet.”
As he reflected on the piece’s winding journey, Wind considered his own role in its comings and goings. “It was fun to be part of the lifecycle of that watch, from when it was discovered in rural Florida and consigned to Christie’s, and then sold to a great collector, who sold it again,” he says. “I imagine it will come back to me at some point. I don’t know if it will be two years from now or 40 years.”
Another grail watch that Wind helped shepherd to a client was an exceptional Paul Newman Rolex Daytona Panda reference 2623 with a full set and a tropical dial that was sold by a small Swedish auction house just under a decade ago. “Another dealer got it,” Wind explains. “I was still at Christie’s, and I fell in love with the watch. This dealer who had it for a year then sold it to an Italian dealer, who then sold it to a collector in Asia. I was tracking the watch on Instagram and saw the collector post it. By that time, I had become a dealer.
“I made an offer to the collector to purchase it on behalf of my client,” he adds. “It had been owned by a Swedish boat captain and had been given to him by the family he worked for, the equivalent of the Rockefellers in Sweden. We had to arrange shipment to the U.S. by Malca-Amit armored transport. Whenever these high-value watches move around, you have to deal with armored shipments, customs, proper transportation, and a lot of paperwork. It takes some time but it’s well worth it.”
Both the AP perpetual calendar and Daytona were original and unpolished—“the kind of watches I look for,” Wind says. “It’s funny how watches circle around. Within the high-end watch world, we’re not talking about thousands and thousands of watches. We’re talking about a relatively small amount of great watches.”
Eric Ku, a high-end vintage dealer in Northern California, certainly knows the drill.
About 15 years ago, he was offered a first-of-its-kind 1996 Rolex Cosmograph Daytona “Rainbow” reference 16599 in white gold on a leather strap.
“I’ve been hunting jeweled Rolexes for a really long time, before it was a cool thing,” Ku, cofounder of the online auction site Loupe This, says. “The watch first surfaced to me around 15 years ago. It was offered to me by a dealer in the Middle East and was coming from, allegedly, a member of a royal family. At the time, the pricing was completely different than it is today. After going back and forth, I offered $130,500 and the seller wanted $136,462. I lost the watch. I was gutted. I’d been stalking the watch. But at the time, relative to the market, it didn’t make sense for me. It was a really tough time, might have been around the financial crisis. I felt confident it would come back to me, but it didn’t.
“Then, in 2012, Rolex introduced its new rainbow Daytona,” Ku says. “I had no doubt about the authenticity of the watch I’d lost out on, but seeing the new rainbow Daytona completely validated me and erased any scintilla of a doubt that I had about the watch. Fast forward a couple years: The watch was offered to me again privately, by a different person in the Middle East at a significant multiple of the original offering—let’s say in the mid six-figures. I bought it.”
In 2017, Ku sold the watch to an important collector based overseas, “a person of very high taste and connoisseurship who appreciated the rarity of that watch,” he says. The collector, by Ku’s reckoning, also appreciated the story of its journey. “Dealers and old collectors always like trading war stories,” he says. “What’s the one thing that got away and then it came back? The collector got sold on the story.”
Now, the watch is coming back to market on Nov. 8 at Phillips Geneva, where it’s being offered in a sale dedicated to neo-vintage timepieces (Reloaded: The Rebirth of Mechanical Watchmaking 1980-1999) and is estimated to fetch in excess of $5.93 million.
“It’s probably the sexiest watch of the season,” Ku says.
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Golden Touch
Discretion is the better part of glamour at the glittering Maybourne Beverly Hills.
Los Angeles does not want for star wattage, but for years now, the city’s hotel scene has been a little lacklustre. So news that the beloved Montage hotel has been completely redone under the Maybourne brand (the British powerhouse that operates Claridge’s, The Connaught, and Berkeley Hotels in London, and the recently opened Maybourne Riviera on the Côte d’Azur) should come as a boon to Australians looking for a new Tinseltown bolthole.
Situated within Beverly Hills’ famous Golden Triangle, just north of Wilshire Boulevard and Four Season’s Beverly Wilshire, and one block from the world-renowned luxury retailers, restaurants and celeb-spotting of Rodeo Drive, The Maybourne Beverly Hills offers a chic retreat from the designer flexing at its doorstep; a rare escape in the heart of this storied enclave that flies under the radar like a cap-wearing celeb dodging the paparazzi.
Set amid the manicured, Mediterranean-style Beverly Cañon Gardens plaza, which unfolds from the hotel’s west entrance, the new incarnation of Montage Beverly Hills (55 suites and 20 private residences, each with a balcony or patio with a courtyard or city view) still evokes the grand estates of Old Hollywood while feeling like you’re in a European mainstay.
Revealing a restrained new guestroom and suite design by Bryan O’Sullivan, a blue-chip art collection and some of the most solicitous staff in town, the Maybourne speaks in a laid-back Californian accent but still holds true to the luxury touchpoints of five-star service for which one of the world’s most exclusive neighbourhoods—and hotel brands—is known.
“It’s reassuringly British when it comes to service—it’s a culture of yes,” says Linden Pride, the Australian restaurant and bar owner behind the award-winning Caffe Dante in New York and Bobbie’s, the new speakeasy opening this month below Neil Perry’s new Song Bird restaurant in Sydney’s Double Bay (page 40). Pride should know; he lived at the Maybourne for almost a year while he and his partner, Nathalie Hudson, set up Dante, the stunning new restaurant and bar on the hotel’s ninth-floor rooftop. “Looking out from the roof onto lemon and olive trees, it’s easy to forget that you’re in Southern California, not Europe.”
Opened last year, Dante has quickly become one of the hottest reservations in town, luring in celebrities from Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin to the entire Real Madrid soccer team. Like its sister outposts in New York (besides the Greenwich Village original, a West Village location opened in 2020), the focus here is on non-threatening antipasti and aperitivi in a produce-driven menu of fresh familiar stalwarts, with the addition of wood-fired dishes from a giant pizza oven at the heart of the room. Just as it does in New York, a negroni cart does the rounds, and each afternoon is welcomed with a martini happy hour.
It’s all fittingly Cali-chill. The only drama in the place is a striking ceiling fresco by Los Angeles artist Abel Macias, which dominates the 146-seat room. “Nathalie and I had just been to Europe when we decided to open up here,” Pride recalls, “and the Sistine Chapel blew us away. When we saw the domed ceiling in this room it was a no-brainer.”
Dante joins a string of newcomers in the area, including New York transplants Café Boulud, Marea and Cipriani. Don’t look now, but with arrivals like the Maybourne and Dante, one of the world’s stuffiest cities—yes, Beverly Hills is its own 14.8 km² metropolis—might just be entering a new golden age.
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White Lotus-ing? How Hit Films and TV Shows Are Inspiring Elite Travelers to ‘Set-Jet’ Across the Globe
It’s not just The White Lotus. Prestige TV and blockbuster films set in far-flung destinations are driving bookings like never before.
“As seen on TV” may have lowbrow connotations, but the recent glut of award-winning shows and films set in alluring, far-flung locations is causing an unprecedented run on the world’s best hotels. Call it set-jetting: planning your vacation around a destination featured in a popular series or movie. And while romantic suites and beloved characters have gotten people on planes since the golden age of film, what has changed is how central beautiful venues have become to plots.
“The way that The White Lotus used the destination to tell the story was really unique,” says Misty Belles, an executive at the global travel-adviser network Virtuoso. It also made its settings—the Four Seasons resorts in Maui and Taormina, Sicily—nigh un-bookable. And it’s hardly the only example: “Paris wasn’t hurting for eyes, but Emily in Paris showed the city in a more playful way,” Belles notes. “And people weren’t exactly flocking to Richmond before Ted Lasso.”
Giulia Parmigiani/Netflix
The trend is so strong that a property doesn’t even need to be connected to a show to benefit from its boom. Henley Vazquez, cofounder of the New York–based travel agency Fora, points to Bridgerton’s impact on English estate hotels.
“Heckfield Place [used to be] a hard sell,” she says of the five-star Georgian mansion in Hampshire. “Now, people are dying to go there. It wasn’t featured in Bridgerton, but it’s just that kind of place.”
Others insist on the real deal. Jennifer Schwartz, managing director of Authentic Explorations, works with one family to build trips based on the Game of Thrones universe.
HBO
“They went out of their way in Portugal” to visit Monsanto, the setting for Dragonstone in House of the Dragon, she notes. “It’s definitely a criterion on which they choose where they want to vacation.”
For travelers who want more than simply to follow in their favorite character’s footsteps, London’s Black Tomato takes things several steps further. Since 2023, it has planned high-octane itineraries based on the James Bond franchise and works with the films’ producers, Eon Productions, to make you feel like an MI6 agent. (Some trips even offer lessons with Daniel Craig’s stunt double, Lee Morrison.)
The 007 success has inspired more such trips. “We’ve just recently launched itineraries inspired by Yellowstone and Ripley, focusing on Montana and Wyoming and Italy, respectively,” says cofounder Tom Marchant.
Netflix
Still, it’s important to remember that sharp camerawork—and editing—accounts for a lot of the on-screen magic. Schwartz, of Authentic Explorations, notes that “the White Lotus hotel” in Sicily is “not super accessible, but it’s filmed as if the beach is right there.” In reality, the shore club from the show’s second season is 133 miles away. “People go to the place and they’re like, ‘You have to get in a car to go to the beach? What do you mean?’ ”
So where shouldn’t you go? Netflix’s The Perfect Couple will likely send hordes to Nantucket next summer, and The White Lotus’s third season, set on the Thai island Koh Samui, has already caused a local spike—and it’s not even on the air yet.
Bookings of Virtuoso’s properties in the region are up 38 percent since the show was announced. Luckily, Belles says, the effect doesn’t linger. “We typically see a good two-year impact on a set-jetting destination.”
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This New Line of Megayachts Brings Modern, Loft-Style Living to the High Seas
Benetti’s first B.Loft model spans an impressive 213 feet
Benetti has been working on something quite, well, lofty.
The Italian shipyard unveiled a new line of megayachts on Monday. Designed to entirely new architectural criteria, the B.Loft range will bring a contemporary residential feel to supersized cruisers. Each B.Loft model will combine “the volumes of a villa with the luminosity of a loft,” according to Benetti.
Penned by Italian studio Cassetta Yacht Designers, the B.Loft yachts will be characterised by sleek lines, minimalist profiles, and expansive glazing. The line will include three models, with the B.Loft 65M (pictured here) being the first to be revealed. The new 213-footer will sit in the middle of the range, with at least one smaller and one larger model joining the lineup at a later date.
The living area.
Benetti
The inaugural B.Loft showcases a steel hull, an aluminum superstructure, and multi-layered decks that create openness and flow. With an impressive beam just shy of 35 feet, the spacious yacht offers six cabins for 12 guests and nine for 13 crew. The interior combines modern matte surfaces and swathes of natural teak, creating an elegant environment for entertaining.
The standout feature of the B.Loft 65M is the “cabana” on the main deck. A cut above an ordinary beach club, the panoramic area is outfitted with three glass doors that afford 270-degree views and two fold-down wings that create up to 430 square feet of relaxation space. The glass-bottomed pool on the main deck above allows different lights, patterns, and shapes to fill the space.
Benetti
Speaking of the main deck, the semi-enclosed aft area leads to a spacious interior lounge and a luxurious lobby. The nearby dining area features floor-to-ceiling windows and a large, central table that is perfect for entertaining. This deck also includes a fully equipped galley and a second lobby with a winter garden and more fold-out balconies.
Benetti
The upper deck is also sure to impress, with towering 13-foot ceilings and a lobby that Benetti says is longer and more spacious than those typically found on yachts of this size. Again, a glass-bottomed hot tub on the sundeck above lets the light shine through the water onto the area below.
Benetti
Benetti didn’t dive into propulsion, but says the B.Loft 65M will be able to cover 5,000 nautical miles at 10 knots. That’s not bad speed or range for a floating loft.
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Omega Just Re-Released Its First Watch to Ever Go to Space
The watchmaker has dropped a new version of the Speedmaster astronaut Walter Schirra wore in space in 1962.
It was one small decision for Omega, one giant win for watch collectors.
The Swiss watchmaker has re-released the first Speedmaster that went to space, combining classic 1950s styling with modern horological innovations.
Launched in 1959, the original watch (Ref. CK 2998) was the successor to the first Speedmaster model that Omega unveiled in 1957. It featured a symmetrical 39.7 mm case, a dark bezel, and slender Alpha hands that set it apart from the previous iteration. NASA astronaut Walter “Wally” Schirra famously wore the second-gen Speedy on the Mercury-Atlas 8: Sigma 7 mission of 1962, earning it the title of “first Omega in Space.” Omega did drop a model in 2012 to honour this feat but discontinued it in 2021. The “First Omega in Space” is now back, with a bold new look.
The contemporary release takes design cues from the CK 2998, maintaining the same polished-brushed stainless-steel case, triple-register chronograph display, and domed crystal. The CVD-coated dial is finished in a grey-blue hue that appeared on some CK 2998 models produced in the 1960s, while the black aluminium bezel features the signature “Dot-Over-Ninety” tachymeter bezel synonymous with the earliest Speedys. The hour markers and Alpha hands are filled with Super-LumiNova in a golden hue that gives an aged quality. In keeping with that historic feel, vintage Omega logos have been added to the dial and crown.
The major difference between the two is the movement. The original was powered by the Calibre 321, while the modern edition is driven by the Calibre 3861. The hand-wound movement, which has the all-important Master Chronometer certification from METAS, offers the highest standard of precision, performance, and magnetic resistance, according to Omega. It has a frequency of 21,600 beats per hour (3 Hz) and a power reserve of 50 hours.
The new Speedmaster also has a couple of special, sentimental touches. The caseback showcases an integrated Seahorse medallion and the engravings “Speedmaster,” “The First Omega in Space” and “October 3, 1962.” The latter is the date that the Mercury-Atlas spacecraft took off from the Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, orbiting the Earth six times, before landing in the Pacific Ocean. Schirra was the sole occupant of the spacecraft, completing the nine-hour mission with his trusty Speedmaster on his wrist.
The new Speedmaster First Omega in Space costs $11,125 with a leather strap or $11,780 with a steel bracelet.
