This year, Revolution turns 20. Two decades of chronicling watches, people and ideas have given us a front-row seat to a remarkable story: how an age-old craft has both preserved its soul and reinvented itself for the 21st century. To celebrate, we’ve chosen over 100 names and milestones that, for us, define the era so far. From leaders to watches, you can see the whole list here.

There surely isn’t another watch brand with quite as many record breakers as Bvlgari in the last decade or so. The last we counted, the tally was a perfect 10 in all of 11 years, beginning and ending with the Octo Finissimo Tourbillon — in 2014, when it was launched with the thinnest manual winding tourbillon movement measuring a whisper-thin 1.95mm; and earlier this year, when it wrested back the crown as the world’s thinnest tourbillon watch in its ultra thin incarnation. At 1.85mm thin, the Octo Finissimo Ultra Tourbillon shattered the record previously held by Piaget’s Altiplano.

Its pursuit of thin has blazed a record-shattering trail for the brand and pushed the boundaries of watchmaking, redefining the meaning and limits of “slim” in watchmaking. The groundbreaking development of the Ultra (2022), the world’s thinnest mechanical watch at 1.8mm thin, for instance, has netted eight patents. Another incredible achievement is 2024’s Octo Finissimo Ultra COSC. Not only was it the thinnest and meanest at 1.7mm, the watch also underwent the grueling tests for accuracy and reliability required by the Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres and emerged as a certified chronometer.

Bvlgari Octo Finissimo Collections

Throughout the record-breaking decade and well beyond the measure of microscopic millimeters, the Octo Finissimo has guarded its pared-back aesthetics that’s sharp, stark and sculptural — in sandblasted titanium, polished steel, Italian Verdi Alphi marble, carbon fiber, ceramic and more; as tourbillon, minute repeater, perpetual calendar, chronograph et al. Indeed, the Octo Finissimo has come into its own as one of the most distinctive design icons of the last 20 years. Flat and wide, it is imposing on the wrist with an outsized presence relative to its ultra slimness and distinct lack of embellishment. Perhaps the most emblematic of them all is the Octo Finissimo Petite Seconde, one of the earliest references in the Octo Finissimo family and often considered its purest incarnation by collectors.

When launched in 2014, it was the thinnest hand-wound mechanical watch on the market at just 5.15mm. But its real calling card was in the visually austere dial design that has come to be synonymous with the Octo Finissimo family — a running seconds subdial set deliberately off-center at 7 o’clock, against a pared-back dial interrupted only by the slimmest of baton indexes and slender hands. The earliest models came in pink gold and platinum, with leather strap. Then in 2017, Bvlgari launched the automatic version with micro-rotor, powered by the BVL 138 movement, and retaining all the design hallmarks of the 2014 model. At the same time, it introduced its all-titanium integrated bracelet that’s flat and faceted, echoing the sculptural form of the dial, with a hidden folding clasp that disappears into the bracelet.

The Octo Finissimo Automatic is the slimmest self-winding watch at 5.15mm

The BVL 138 movement

The Octo Finissimo Automatic has since become the tabula rasa for striking sold-out collaborations with architects and artists such as Tadao Ando, Kazuyo Sejima and the latest, Lee Ufan. Each of these collaborations reiterate the modern minimalist aesthetics of the Octo Finissimo, one that sets it far, far apart from the madding crowd. The jury might still be out on which is the fairest of them all — but that’s no matter as we relish these blurred lines between sculpture and watch, art and horology.

Bvlgari Octo Finissimo Automatic

Tech Specs: Bvlgari Octo Finissimo Automatic

Movement: Self-winding Manufacture Caliber BVL 138; 60-hour power reserve
Functions: Hours, minutes and small seconds
Case: 40mm × 5.15mm; titanium; water resistant to 30m
Dial: Sandblasted titanium
Strap: Integrated titanium bracelet, or black alligator leather with titanium pin buckle