No longer the old noon whistle,

the gold pocket watch, the Roman numerals

abroad on the kitchen clock. Those times

are over. Pressed now to whatever function,

the wrist’s new chronograph, fraction of a second

after fraction of a second, flashes parts

of figures that transfigure as they move,

only to tell what we better know,

how we ourselves are the measure of time. 

From “Times” by Phillip Booth (1989)

In his signature clear, luminous style, American poet Philip Booth explored the interconnectedness humans have with time and how we are compelled to measure it – charting our life’s progress into the unknown future. It’s a subject that has fascinated generations of writers, artists, scientists and horologists who continue to explore the state of impermanence, and seek out wonder amidst constant change. 

For Bulgari’s CEO Jean-Christophe Babin, the impulse behind the Roman jeweller’s watchmaking oeuvre is “giving form to emotion, especially when this emotion confronts time.” High Jewellery, Serpenti, Bulgari Bulgari, Octo and Grand Complications are the pillars of Bulgari collections and they all lead back to the foundations that Greek born Sotirio Bulgari (born Sotirios Voulgaris, before Romanizing his name) laid down when he opened his eponymous store in 1884 at 85 Via Sistina. He expanded to seven retail stores and embedded the Bulgari family business in Rome: a capital famed for its impossible blend of bathos, beauty, Cinecittà glamour, political power and ancient history. 

It was during the 1920s – when slender cocktail watches came into vogue – that the house’s horology business took off. Collaborating with Swiss watchmakers such as Audemars Piguet, Vacheron Constantin and Jaeger-LeCoultre, Bulgari’s earliest examples were gem set and often cased in platinum. The sleek designs chimed with the era that celebrated streamlined modern silhouettes epitomised by the Cunard liner and the Chrysler building. Over a slender black sleeve or an opera glove, these watches offered up a tantalising slither of refracted light and became the epitome of between-the-wars chic. 

Following Sotirio’s death, sons Giorgio and Costantino forged ahead: working with rich gold metals and introducing more organic shapes, as well as rekeying the Bulgari typeface and logo with its distinct Roman alphabet. The link between ancient civilization and contemporary luxury proved a winning formula. When in Rome, visits to Bulgari, Gucci, or Fendi are as mandatory as the Trevi Fountain and the Colosseum.

The undisputed breakthrough was the Serpenti watch, with its ergonomic coiled strap that took 15 years to perfect and that launched in 1948. The design brilliantly merged the art of adornment with the skills of watchmaking, creating an iconic piece that has bewitched generations with its beguiling symbolism and fluid slithering form. 

In our warp-speed world, fine watches call for a metaphorical slowdown. The pieces demand attention, admiration and become part of the wearer’s own gestures. “The crafting of such a piece relies on a paradigm, as jewellery speaks to the heart and horology to reason, and we must make sure they can coexist,” says Jean-Christophe Babin.

A jewellery watch is a brilliant hybrid, a fact which has allowed it to slide between perceived expectations. To that end, it remains a genre for constant invention and wild imaginings. “Italians are known for their ability to ennoble materials that are part of their daily lives,” explains Fabrizio Buonamassa Stigliani, Bulgari’s product creation executive director. He goes on to cite the Tubogas, which echoes the shape of a gas pipe, and the Monete jewellery and watches, which, from the 1970s on, incorporated antique coins. At Bulgari, modular jewellery has been made of steel, and necklaces made of porcelain – all of which goes to show this family’s own modularity, as they always shift with the times.

Ophidiophobians might well be disturbed, but a certain allure of danger is central to Bulgari’s Serpenti charm. The snake mascot has evolved through time dressed up in engraved, enamel or pavé-diamond scales; featuring ruby or emerald eyes, or crowned with ruby cabochons, or a crest of marquise-cut diamonds and micro beads.

It enjoyed huge success in the 1970s – with pieces coming back into fashion via the auction market – and has been regularly reinvented in the 21st century, with the Serpenti Scaglie featuring alternating scales of pavé diamonds and onyx launching in 2009. One year later, the Serpenti Tubogas arrived, pairing the serpent’s stylized teardrop head with the Tubogas bracelet.

Along its journey, the Serpenti has attracted many passionate followers. Elizabeth Taylor, for one, will be forever connected with the snake’s fame. During a publicity shoot for Cleopatra, the British-American actress wore a Serpenti of yellow gold, platinum and diamonds with emerald eyes that took over two hundred hours of work to complete (her husband Richard Burton often joked that Bulgari was the first Italian word in Liz’s vocabulary). Marisa Berenson, Diana Vreeland, and ambassador Zendaya are also amongst its roll call of fans today.

Serpenti’s popularity is doubly fascinating because of the historical associations of the snake. Our common reaction is one of fear and distrust, but it’s all a game of perception. Snakes are revered as protective, symbols of wisdom and renewal in Asia while in the West the shadow of temptation and evil hangs heavily. That duality has fascinated artists throughout time from Greek and Roman sculptors revisiting the myth of the snake-haired Medusa to the anonymous jewellers of antiquity who created wraparound Tubogas serpent coils. Gustav Klimt, Marina Abramović and Turkish-born American AI artist Refik Anadol are in the large canon of artists drawn by reptilian myth and symbolism.

In Anadol’s 2022 work “Serpenti Metamorphosis”, as commissioned by Bulgari to mark Serpenti’s 75th anniversary, the genre was fast forwarded into the Web 3 world. Anadol created a poetic multimedia artwork trained with 200 million images of flora and fauna, including myriad images of snakes. “The idea of an AI machine dreaming about metamorphosis is the core to the work to create a beautiful dialogue between humans, tech, and nature,” says Anadol, whose work explores the impact of time and how animal and human species evolve to survive.

The family lineage in the company has ensured constant innovation, and the resilience necessary to ride the waves of fluctuating taste. If there is a good match with Serpenti, it is the eight-sided Octo. ‘It still amazes me how Bulgari has masterfully managed to go from being perceived primarily as a jeweller to one of the leaders in modern watchmaking,’ writes collector and connoisseur John Goldberger in the Assouline tome Bulgari: Beyond Time. ‘Bulgari has become as important for watches in Italy as Ferrari is for sports cars.’ He recalls the release of the Octo Finissimo Automatic. ‘I remember hearing comments about it being a new icon, the most incredible watch released in the last fifty years. Even among some of the most prominent watch collectors of the world, the Octo caught on quickly,’ he writes. ‘If that’s not a testament to its success, I don’t know what is.’

The Octo Finissimo is the brainchild of Buonamassa Stigliani, who originally trained in industrial design and had set his sights on automotive design as a career. He joined Bulgari in 2001 armed with an appreciation of watchmaking, however, and a thrill at being able to design a product from A to Z. He finalised a new bracelet for Octo in 2004, updating the steel sports watch first designed in the 1970s by Gérald Genta. (Legendary watch designers Gérald Genta and Daniel Roth were fully integrated into the Bulgari business in 2009). Mastermind Genta broke the codes of watchmaking and was also behind a bonanza of designs including the Royal Oak for Audemars Piguet (1972) and the Nautilus for Patek Philippe (1976).

After Genta’s death, the reinvention of the Octo became of Buonamassa Stigliani’s mission. He drew up a design with 110 facets and an integrated bracelet and clasp; the handsome dial was lacquered with condensed Arabic numerals at 12 and 6, and elongated baton hour markers at the other points, echoing the totemic Bulgari Roma dial of 1977. The angular complexity was outstanding, but it was still heavy. In 2014, Bulgari introduced the Octo Finissimo Tourbillon: the thinnest mechanical tourbillon wristwatch ever made. The movement was 1.95 millimetres thick, with a case measuring 5 millimetres. It proved a disruptor in the already oversubscribed sports watch arena. Buonamassa Stigliani continued to pursue the ultimate less-is-more, wafer-thin design – realising a version measuring just 1.8mm in 2022.

Back at the turn of this century, it would have been impossible to imagine the Octo Ultra with its embedded NFT that allows the wearer to be immersed in the intricacies of the mechanism via a digital screen. Today, Bulgari’s horological development takes place in a special atelier in Neuchâtel, where the convergence of Swiss watchmaking technology and the flamboyance of Italian design makes for a happy marriage under the creative direction of Stigliani.

A watch’s purpose is to accurately tell the time, but it’s with the application of imagination that a timepiece becomes an expression of the self. Seconds, minutes, hours and days are the measure of a life well-loved; after all, you shouldn’t rush it.