The seventh edition of LVMH Watch Week has arrived, and this time the Italian fashion capital of Milan provides the backdrop for what promises to be one of the year’s most significant horological announcements. From the 19th to the 21st of January, nine watchmaking houses under the LVMH umbrella converged on Via Montenapoleone to unveil their creations, each representing a fresh chapter in contemporary luxury watchmaking. For Bvlgari, the gathering offered an opportunity to revisit its foundational icons through an unexpected lens: the pursuit of gold in all its cultural and material manifestations.
The theme chosen by the Maison, “The Art of Gold“, signals something altogether deliberate about the brand’s recent trajectory. Bvlgari exists in a peculiar space within the horological world, occupying equally the roles of Roman goldsmith and Swiss watchmaker. That duality, so often treated as a point of tension in other houses, finds expression here as creative resolution. The four pieces presented at Milan do not seek to reconcile these identities so much as celebrate their integrated presence.
The Maglia Milanese Monete: Where History Meets Craftsmanship
It was in Milan itself that Bvlgari chose to unveil the Maglia Milanese Monete, a decision loaded with cultural significance. The city has long been the cradle of the Milanese mesh bracelet tradition, a construction technique developed during the Renaissance by Milanese goldsmiths who understood that interlaced gold threads could produce a texture of remarkable suppleness. The secret watch itself revisits the Monete collection, first introduced by Bvlgari in the mid-1960s, when the brand began exploring the marriage of ancient Roman imagery with contemporary watchmaking.
At its heart lies an authentic ancient coin bearing the profile of Emperor Caracalla, minted between 198 and 297 AD. This is not mere ornamentation; it anchors the entire design philosophy. The coin sits beneath a hinged lid set within an octagonal frame of brilliant-cut diamonds, a geometric language that extends throughout the case construction. When lifted, the coin reveals a white mother-of-pearl dial punctuated by twelve diamond indices and surrounded by a sunray pattern engraved into the rose gold case.
The Piccolissimo BVP100 movement powering the watch represents Bvlgari‘s commitment to horological miniaturisation. Measuring just 13.5 millimetres in diameter and standing 2.5 millimetres tall, this hand-wound mechanical calibre comprises 102 components yet delivers a respectable 30-hour power reserve. Designed and produced entirely within Bvlgari’s Le Sentier manufacture in the Swiss Jura, it has been reimagined for this release with a crown-winding mechanism and a transparent sapphire caseback that reveals its mechanical interior.
The innovation, however, lies in the bracelet. For the first time in its history, Bvlgari has devoted serious attention to the Milanese mesh technique, crafting a rose gold iteration that possesses a suppleness and fluidity that recalls the finest examples of Renaissance workmanship. It is secured to the wrist with a pin buckle, itself a first for this collection, rather than the traditional folding clasp, lending the piece an unexpected contemporary note.
The Maglia Milanese Monete retails for EUR 157,000, positioning it squarely within the realm of haute joaillerie watches, though the pricing reflects not simply the precious metal and gemstone content but also the profound skill required to execute both the Milanese mesh and the dial construction.​
The Tubogas Manchette: Colour and Architecture
If the Monete represents restraint and geometric precision, the Tubogas Manchette abandons such discipline in favour of chromatic exuberance. Inspired by a 1974 reference, this piece retrieves a design vocabulary from an era when Bvlgari‘s approach to the Tubogas, the signature flexible tube bracelet that first appeared in the early 1940s reached its most architecturally ambitious expression.
The Manchette presents a 16-millimetre yellow gold case housing a compact round dial set with diamonds totalling 0.6 carats. The dial itself appears as a shimmering surface, with no indices, allowing the eye to be drawn instead to the sculptural bracelet that dominates the composition. This is a watch that privileges its own proportions as much as traditional horological display.
The single-coil Tubogas bracelet, fashioned from yellow gold, spirals around the wrist in a continuous embrace, each link shaped and polished individually before being assembled onto a titanium mounting blade. This modular construction, introduced as a technical innovation for this release, allows the decorative pattern to flow seamlessly across the bracelet whilst preserving the flexible architecture that defines the Tubogas aesthetic.
The colour palette deployed throughout this design possesses an almost jewellery-like intensity. Nearly twelve carats of diamonds provide the foundation, but these are punctuated by a carefully selected assortment of coloured gemstones: citrines, rubellites, peridots, amethysts, topazes, and spessartites, each cut and positioned to create a rhythmic interplay of hue and tone. The effect is deliberately exuberant, even ebullient.
The movement housing this composition is Bvlgari’s newly developed Lady Solotempo Automatic BVS100, a calibre that measures just 19 millimetres in diameter and 3.9 millimetres in thickness yet weighs only 5 grams. It delivers 50 hours of power reserve and operates at a frequency of 21,600 vibrations per hour. The transparent caseback permits unobstructed viewing of the oscillating mass, which carries Bvlgari’s signature logo and an engraved snake-scale motif.
The Tubogas Manchette commands a price of EUR 194,000, a figure that reflects both the complexity of its construction and the quantity of precious materials it contains.​
The Serpenti Seduttori Automatic: Refined Femininity in Two Interpretations
The Serpenti collection holds a unique position within Bvlgari’s portfolio. First introduced in 1948 as a mechanical timepiece, it embodied the Maison’s fascination with the serpent as a symbol drawn from Greco-Roman culture and later crystallised through Cleopatra’s legendary adornment. The snake, with its capacity for transformation and renewal, offered Bvlgari a thematic richness that few other design vocabularies could provide.
The Serpenti Seduttori Automatic represents the culmination of a journey that began with the introduction of the Lady Solotempo movement last year. Unlike earlier iterations powered by quartz or requiring manual winding, these new versions embrace automatic winding, positioning the Serpenti within the broader landscape of mechanical watchmaking without sacrificing its jewellery-like sensibility.
Two variations appear at Milan, each articulating a different facet of Bvlgari’s conception of feminine luxury. The first features a malachite dial, that vibrant green stone associated with healing and protection, mounted within a 34-millimetre rose gold case. A cabochon-cut pink rubellite adorns the crown, its warm hue echoing the rose gold-plated hands and indices below. The bezel carries 36 brilliant-cut diamonds totalling 0.6 carats, encircling the dial with a constellation of light.
The second interpretation opts for a white opaline dial, a more austere choice that permits the diamond-set bracelet to assume greater visual prominence. Here, 117 brilliant-cut diamonds totalling 2.8 carats cover the rose gold bracelet, creating a piece of incandescent femininity. Both versions incorporate the Lady Solotempo’s 50-hour power reserve and operate at the standard 21,600 vph frequency.
The case shape itself—that distinctive drop or teardrop silhouette that has come to define Serpenti—remains instantly recognisable, its second-skin bracelet featuring hexagonal scales inspired by serpentine geometry. The supple construction ensures the piece wraps around the wrist with what Bvlgari describes as “effortless charisma,” a phrase that encapsulates the brand’s approach to combining technical precision with aesthetic seduction.​
The Lvcea Notte di Luce: Light as Material
The final revelation at Milan emerges from an unexpected collaboration between Bvlgari and Japanese master craftsman Yasuhiro Asai. The Lvcea collection, introduced in 2014, has long served as an emblem of luminous femininity within the Bvlgari portfolio. It is distinguished by its interplay of steel, rose gold, and encircling diamonds, yet for this special edition, the Maison has entrusted the dial itself to Asai’s hands and his profound mastery of the ancestral Japanese techniques of Urushi lacquer and Raden inlay.
Urushi represents a tradition extending back into prehistoric times. The lacquer itself is derived from tree sap and refined through a laborious process of colouring and polishing. Over centuries, it became synonymous with refinement and was eventually enriched through the introduction of Raden, literally translated as “sprinkled picture”, a technique that emerged approximately thirteen hundred years ago. Raden involves the embedding of minute mother-of-pearl fragments, each selected individually for its particular iridescence and shape, into the lacquer base to compose intricate mosaic patterns.
What Asai has created for the Lvcea Notte di Luce is nothing short of extraordinary. Against a background of profound black lacquer, fragments of mother-of-pearl emerge in a shimmering interplay of reflected light. The dial becomes a living canvas, its surface possessing a quality of luminescence that recalls deep water or the night sky itself. Each dial is unique, requiring sixty days of patient labour to complete. Between every application of lacquer, Asai employs charcoal to polish the surface, a gesture repeated across multiple layers, each one revealing fresh depth and brilliance within the material.
The watch itself houses Bvlgari‘s automatic Solotempo movement with 42 hours of power reserve. The 33-millimetre case is executed in a combination of stainless steel and rose gold, with a bezel set with 1.075 carats of brilliant-cut diamonds. The crown carries a synthetic pink sapphire cabochon crowned with a single diamond, whilst the bracelet unites polished and satin-brushed finishes across its steel and rose gold components.
Limited to eighty pieces for each variation, the Lvcea Notte di Luce retails for approximately CHF 21,200, positioning it within a more accessible price bracket than its siblings whilst maintaining an absolutely exclusive character through its numerical limitation and the unrepeatability of the dial work.​
Celebrating Origins Through Transformation
What emerges from this collection is not a retreat into historical pastiche but rather a meditation on how contemporary craftsmanship might honour and extend the foundational principles that established Bvlgari as a house of consequence. The Maglia Milanese Monete celebrates the brand’s capacity to work precious metals with the precision of a Roman goldsmith; the Tubogas Manchette reawakens the Maison’s appetite for chromatic boldness; the Serpenti Seduttori Automatic reconnects with a design philosophy rooted in mythology and femininity; and the Lvcea Notte di Luce demonstrates that even in the mechanical age, there remain spaces for artisanal traditions utterly divorced from industrial convention.
Jean-Christophe Babin, CEO of both Bvlgari and the LVMH Watch Division, has stated that “this year we anticipate significant novelties and exceptional pieces from all our Maisons, united in their diversity by the Group’s creative passion.” At Milan, Bvlgari has proven itself worthy of that mandate, presenting four watches that manage simultaneously to be commercially confident, technically accomplished, and artistically compelling. That is no small achievement in contemporary luxury watchmaking, where such qualities often remain mutually exclusive.
