The power to move

With Watches and Wonders Geneva just around the corner, some pre-releases indicate that the year is shaping up to deliver the much-needed magic required to boost an industry in decline. According to the latest Morgan Stanley Swiss-watch market report, there has been a significant dip in volume sales at the lower end of the market owing to price increases, among other challenges.

Independent high-end brands and those with both watch and jewellery offerings appear to be holding strong, but it’s no time for complacency. As Bulgari Group CEO Jean-Christophe Babin warns: “Brands must cross new boundaries and dare to innovate out of the box.” Watchmaking has always been a collaborative effort, but there are those who push the envelope of industry silos, allowing the collective effort to co-produce richer discourses and even richer outcomes.

The retro-futuristic Bulgari x MB&F Serpenti is a perfect expression of multidisciplinary creativity and the value of these deep relationships. The wonderous machines of MB&F (Maximilian Büsser & Friends) are toys for grownups, conceived in collaboration with the watch industry’s top talent.  This is the second venture between Bulgari’s product creation executive director Fabrizio Buonamassa Stigliani and Büsser, the founder and creative director of MB&F — in 2021, they co-designed the MB&F Legacy Machine FlyingT Allegra.

As the name suggests, Bulgari brought its jewellery expertise in colourful gemstone setting, adding an uplifting note to these radical three-dimensional timepieces. The new Serpenti is a revolutionary approach to one of Bulgari’s most iconic designs. The Serpenti Tubogas made its first appearance in 1948 as a high-jewellery bracelet watch inspired by snakes and 19th-century industrial design — literally high-pressure gas pipes — featuring a metal bracelet that coiled around the wrist.

Reminiscent of the biomorphic designs for futuristic vessels such as the Nebuchadnezzar hovercraft from The Matrix, this awe-inspiring reimagining of the Serpenti is unlike any version that came before, landing it asymmetrically in MB&F’s universe of high-end kinetic sculptures. This is just the machine the resistance needs.

While original design considerations stem from the grinning MB&F Horological Machine HM10 “Bulldog”, according to Stigliani it took hundreds of drawings and dozens of 3D-printed models to resolve the complex snake-head-shape of the Serpenti’s case design. The combination of curved metal surfaces and five sapphire crystals was extremely difficult to machine and finish, while it was also incredibly challenging to achieve the 30m water resistance. Assembled and exquisitely finished by hand, the manual-winding, in-house base calibre required significant modifications in service of the dynamic new design.

Giving life to the snake, the animation of its “eyes” is achieved by the colourful rotating aluminium hour and minute domes, both with hand-applied Super-LumiNova. A sizeable 14mm bespoke flying balance wheel with four regulating screws is the symbolic mechanical brain of the snake, fastened in place by a balance bridge engraved with the partners’ logos. Separate crowns for winding and setting the time are incorporated into the lugs. A power-reserve indicator and the intricate workings of the hand-finished movement can be admired through its large sapphire-crystal case back.

The unisex Serpenti is available in three limited versions of 33 pieces each: a titanium case with blue eyes; an 18kt rose-gold case with green eyes; and a black PVD-coated stainless-steel case with red eyes. Each comes on a hand-stitched rubber strap. POA, bulgari.com and Bulgari Boutique 011 883 1325

From the March edition of Wanted, 2025