The thin timepiece genre has become something of a battleground, with watch companies introducing record-breaking models at one show only to be outdone at the next. And this back-and-forth is far from over.
Making already tiny watch parts smaller and thinner is an obvious challenge as slighter parts are by nature weaker, unless you know how to do it. And that’s the point – not every company can go thin and succeed, and there is an argument to be made that ultra-thin is a complication like any other.
Piaget and Bulgari are leading the way when it comes to wafer-thin watches. “The decision to go thin dates back more than five years, when we were figuring out the mission of Bulgari watches,” explains Jean-Christophe Babin, CEO and president of Bulgari. “We wanted to provide gentlemen with the ultimate elegance, like we do with ladies’ jewels. We created the Finissimo project to craft watches we have never seen before, with the Octo shape, and to be the thinnest possible.”
In the Finissimo series, Bulgari has released a hand-wind tourbillon, a hand-wind minute repeater, an automatic (in various finishings) and an automatic skeletonised tourbillon just 3.95mm tall (the self-winding tourbillon movement itself is, staggeringly, only 1.95mm thick), winning design and watchmaking prizes along the way. It also breaks three world records: the world's thinnest automatic watch, the world's thinnest automatic tourbillon and the world's thinnest tourbillon.
Piaget has been making thin watches since its founding 144 years ago. “We will keep on pushing boundaries,” pledges Chabi Nouri, Piaget’s CEO. “This is our legacy and it is paving the way for our future launches. Our Altiplano Ultimate Concept, at 2mm thin, stems from four years of research and development, and involved a team of three engineers working with watchmakers, designers, case and movement constructors at every stage of its creation. It also called for the implementation of technical solutions pushing the boundaries of micromechanics and for the filing of five patents. This model represents a feat of miniaturisation.”
Thinking a different way
Many companies start with an existing movement and try to take as much size and weight out of the components within. Bulgari decided to go a different way.
“We rethought the movement to be thin from day one,” Babin says. “We had to design it to be thin, accessible, easily maintained and fast to assemble. This leads to new technical solutions. None of our Finissimo models share the same movement platform.”
Every part of the watch had to be examined from the bridges to the rotor. For example, the pusher of the Octo Finissimo Tourbillon Automatic at four o'clock is part of a safety system that lets you use the crown to set the time. This is required because the movement is so flat that the stem lies in the same plane as the peripheral rotor. And the watchmakers also had to consider durability, shockproofing and more, as even the thinnest watches are still meant to be worn.
“The main challenge in producing these ultra-thin watches is to combine both reliability and miniaturisation,” says Geoffroy Lefebvre, Deputy CEO, Jaeger-LeCoultre, which holds the record for the thinnest watch with a hand-wound movement with the 3.6mm thick Master Ultra Thin Squelette. “In the past, many watchmakers viewed ultra-thin with a degree of apprehension as it was almost impossible to achieve for a wristwatch. At Jaeger-LeCoultre we found the right balance thanks to technical innovations without any compromise to reliability.”
How thin can we go?
Companies such as Piaget, Jaeger-LeCoultre and Bulgari have accomplished feats of thinness by combining new designs with engineering solutions and new materials. There will certainly come a point where a watch just can’t get any thinner, but we’re not there yet. As Piaget’s Nouri says with a smile: “Things can always get thinner, but you will have to wait and see.”
Whatever future developments may bring, already when you put on the Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Automatic, a Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Ultra Thin or the new Bulgari Finissimo Tourbillon Automatique, it’s mind-boggling that a timepiece so thin and light can actually keep being a watch.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
