“I use the rules to break the rules,”: A Sketchbook Conversation with BVLGARI's Fabrizio Buonamassa Stigliani

Equal parts Neapolitan charisma and Swiss rigour, the man behind Bulgari’s Octo revolution has long insisted that elegance isn’t a matter of superfluous detail, but of precision, persistence, and the joy of design

By Sharan Sanil

April 03, 2025

It’s not every day that your interview subject opens with a compliment about your watch—especially when said subject has ten world records under his belt. “Nice Bambino,” smiles Fabrizio Buonamassa Stigliani as we sit down to chat. That Orient was a gift from my father, and for a moment, we weren’t journalist and designer, but just two men who love watches—any watches—for what they mean to us.

That, in a way, captures the warmth and easy intensity of Buonamassa Stigliani’s design ethos. “On the Ultra,” he tells me, “every single detail is drawn for a specific function. It’s like a Formula 1 car.” He would know—before he designed the world’s thinnest flying tourbillon, he was sketching cars for Fiat.

The Thinnest Tourbillon Ever Made

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At Watches & Wonders 2025, Bulgari returned with a flex of pure technical muscle. With a case just 1.85mm thick, the new Octo Finissimo Ultra Tourbillon doesn’t just reclaim the throne for ultra-thin watchmaking—it refines it with unapologetic clarity.

This is not simply an Octo made thinner. It’s the culmination of ten years of engineering brinkmanship and a design language that treats finesse as a horological complication in itself. The movement is built into the case using a tungsten carbide main plate, a material chosen for its rigidity at minimal thickness. The skeletonised tourbillon—now visible under a single time-telling counter—sits within a visual field of micro-bead-blasted titanium and rhodium-plated components. Light floods the movement from every angle, made more dramatic by the stark geometry of the octagonal case.

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Seeing it in person defies expectation. It almost doesn’t feel real. The case is so thin, so resolved in its dimensional clarity, that my camera’s autofocus struggled to lock on when shooting it at an angle. It disappeared into reflections, playing tricks on the lens—as if even the machine couldn’t believe it was there. That alone says something. It’s not just a watch—it’s a visual illusion built on mechanical absolutes. The result is a manifesto in 1.85mm: an ultra-thin watch that doesn’t just hide its complexity—it puts it on full, symmetrical display. And like its predecessors, it doesn’t just chase records. It asks what else a watch can be when nothing extraneous is left behind.

As the Octo defied expectations once again, so too did the conversation that followed. Having followed his work for years—and with a camera roll full of rally car shots I was itching to share—I was especially keen to dive into the minds behind his collaborations. From cyberpunk Serpentis to mechanical storytelling with Max Büsser at MB&F, it was clear: Fabrizio doesn’t just design watches. He forges creative alliances and sketches out ideas before they can be boxed into categories. So, we sat down for a conversation that veered as easily from titanium cases to tailored jackets as it did from tourbillons to Testarossas. Excerpts:

Fabrizio, first off—MB&F x Bulgari. I spent days staring at the photographs when it launched. What were the initial conversations that led to this collaboration with Max Büsser?

Fabrizio Buonamassa Stigliani: The initial conversation wasn’t really a conversation. I had the idea of creating a Serpenti watch for a guy a long time ago—I don’t remember exactly when, but something just clicked in my brain. At a certain point, the idea grew and grew. I had in mind this MB&F 'eye' and I thought, okay, now we can do it.

I started sketching, a lot of sketches, and within three days I had something on paper. I messaged Max. I said, “Max, I have an idea.” Five minutes later, he replied, “Fabrizio, please tell me what you’re thinking.” I sent him a sketch and he said, “Wow, this is amazing, we have to do it.”

I showed the drawing to my team—they thought it was incredible. After that, we continued the conversation on WhatsApp, because Max lives in Dubai and travels a lot, and I live in Switzerland and travel a lot too.

These are two very different design languages—MB&F and Bulgari. How did you manage to blend them so seamlessly? Was there any compromise?

No compromises. First of all, it’s a friendship more than a collaboration. We talk with Max about many things. The two brands are completely different, but they share many common elements.

So when you see the Bulgari x MB&F Serpenti, you immediately know it’s a Serpenti, but also clearly an MB&F creation. That’s what’s so interesting—we never discussed this explicitly. The only constraint we faced was with the eyes. My initial sketch had this large eye, but it was impossible to produce, especially to guarantee water resistance across the full surface of the eye.

So we decided on this roll bar concept, like in the automotive world. For the back, we used a similar design to the HM5, which was actually the first MB&F watch that sparked our conversation many years ago. The watch is full of MB&F elements and full of Bulgari elements—a beautiful combination.

Bulgari is in the jewellery and watches, but you're also apparently in the 'record-breaking' business! Could you tell me about the design journey for the Octo Finissimo Tourbillon Ultra?

The Octo Finissimo Tourbillon Ultra is a technical piece. There’s no room for decorative elements or makeup. It’s a machine that has to work perfectly—like a Formula 1 car or a spacecraft. Every single detail is designed for a specific function.

When I saw the initial layout, I requested a skeleton version. I wanted to slightly modify the style of certain components—I saw this as an opportunity to explore new executions. The idea was to have only one counter, not two like in some of our other models. And I thought—why not skeletonise it, like we did with the Octo Striking, which has a flying tourbillon? So we started opening up the wheels, some of the bridges. The first configuration had only a large dial. I asked them to remove it—“show me what’s behind.” I saw all these wheels aligned in a single line. I thought it could be interesting to showcase this, which is why we chose the open-worked execution.

It wasn’t easy—we have one dial-side glass and three more glasses on the caseback. So achieving a thickness of 1.85 mm with all those elements was a huge challenge.

How many watchmakers were involved in crafting the new Octo, and how many will be made?

I believe one master watchmaker and three other people were involved in the process. We received the first watch just before the holiday season. We’ll be producing 20 pieces per year, so it’s a two-year production cycle.

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What’s next for you and Bulgari?

What’s next is Serpenti, what’s next is Finissimo *laughs*. We’re working on something very significant for 2026, 2027, 2028. Creating new movements takes two to three years, and there are some very important collaborations coming. Expect a lot of interesting things with Finissimo, with Octo in general, and with Serpenti.

Speaking of collaborations—you’ve done MB&F. Is there another watchmaker you’d like to work with?

After MB&F, we received many requests. But honestly, you need the right moment, the right energy, the right goal. It’s not easy to create a collaboration like the ones we had with Max.

Bulgari designs often reflect classic Italian design codes, but you also embrace bold, contemporary materials. How do you balance that?

Everything comes together naturally. Some products are more classic, others push boundaries. But the brand remains the same. Each idea is different because each has a different goal. Designing a Serpenti is completely different from designing an Octo or an Octo Finissimo Ultra. It’s a different approach altogether. I start with an idea, and then the thoughts come—I use drawing to investigate the idea. That’s the moment I love most, honestly.

To sit across from Buonamassa Stigliani is to be reminded that great design isn’t about excess, but essence. Whether it’s a tourbillon that disappears into a titanium sliver or a Serpenti that morphs into a cyberpunk dream, his work lives at the intersection of intuition and impossibility. And that’s a record worth breaking every time.