From humble beginnings in Rome, started long ago in 1884, Bulgari has moved from a famous respected high-level jeweler that sold third-party wristwatches designed under commission and retailing other brands’ products in its exclusive stores to the vertical integration model where watches at all price levels are designed, constructed, finished and assembled at Bulgari’s own factories in Le Sentier and Neuchatel with case and dial factories in nearby Saignelegier and Neuchatel respectively.
This complex process of integration requires an effective and proactive management team, which in Bulgari’s case is led by Mr. Guido Terreni, who has a degree in Business Administration from Luigi Bocconi University in Milan, Italy in addition to solid experience within Bulgari for almost 18 years. As Managing Director of Bulgari’s Watch Division Mr. Terreni has met a fair share of challenges and enjoyed success at the helm. During the recent SIAR 2017 in Mexico City, WorldTempus caught up with him for a short interview about his vision and strategy for Bulgari.
The Italian design element is one of Bulgari’s key resources in its successful commercial strategy, how do you achieve this transfer of value to your products?
For Bulgari, every watch we design and build must be essentially beautiful, where aesthetics play a center role, that way emotion is teamed with advanced techniques so it can generate passion in its owner. Our Bulgari Octo collection, for instance, has a superb geometric masculine design with a powerful architecture that along with the decoration and the build of its mechanical movement places this watch further ahead of any other luxury piece in the market.
Octo Finissimo Automatic © Bulgari
Italian jeweler and watchmaker Bulgari have developed a reputation for haute horology timepieces in recent years, especially when working with ultra-thin tourbillons and skeletonized movements. Taking their design language at another way, the Bulgari Octo Tourbillon Sapphire is the newest most up-to-date experiment with clever movement architecture, using the grade’s bridges as hour indicators. These bridges are DLC-coated and topped with green luminescent material which supplies a lot of comparison and so high legibility for a skeletonized dial.Bulgari (often written in the Latinized form BVLGARI) is still perhaps best called a jeweler rather than a watchmaker. Founded in 1884 in Greece by Sotirios Boulgaris, the company moved around a lot until eventually settling in Via Condotti, Rome in 1905. Bulgari began selling watches in the 1970s and in 1975 they joined the ranks of Gerald Genta designed timepiece makers with the “BVLGARI BVLGARI” watch, motivated by the repeating inscriptions discovered on some ancient Roman stone. This collection recently celebrated its 40th anniversary, which we covered in a meeting with Bulgari CEO Jean-Christophe Babin here.In 2000, Bulgari obtained two established Swiss high-end watchmaking firms — Gerald Genta and Daniel Roth SA, including their production facilities. The identifying Gerald Genta layout language that is very present in the Bulgari Octo collection carries into the Tourbillon Sapphire, with a mix of industrial elements within an 44mm, geometric DLC-coated titanium case with both brushed and polished surfaces.A variant is also available in 18k pink gold, which supplies a slightly dressier, more formal feel to the watch. The brand’s signature octagonal bezel and stepped lugs give this view a distinguishing Gerald Genta flair, and previous models like the Bulgari Tourbillon Saphir went up to displaying his name on the sapphire crystal over the dial. Employing the motion’s bridges as hour signs is a clever move by Bulgari, allowing for a totally skeletonized dial that nonetheless retains legibility. The minute and hour hands are likewise skeletonized so as to not obstruct the view of this movement, and include broad arrow tips full of green luminescent material.
How important is for your customer the immense capacity as a Manufacture that Bulgari owns?
Being a Manufacture provides Bulgari with complete independence in the generation of our own designs and styles as a brand, we are masters of our own destiny and we have the freedom to pursue our own expressions and identity, at the same time, we are able to receive from our technical teams new ideas and concepts that we can execute without constraints.
Octo has become a runaway success for Bulgari, what is the appeal to customers and collectors that has produced this success?
The vision of an extra-flat watch with a new design code supported the elegant aesthetic of a different classical watch where we broke the rules by adding numerous planes and angles in an architectural concept, reminiscent of the great columns of ancient Roman temples. Our impression is that the Bulgari Octo watch, in its various models, has become a new reference among modern collectors.
What are your expectations for the Mexican and South American Markets?
Our presence at the SIAR is a confirmation of our desire to know and get closer to these relevant markets. We develop products for a global market perspective and we like to establish closer links with markets such as Mexico and Latin America to know their take in our designs and concepts as brought from our design teams.