In these days of heavily individualized aesthetics, “looking good” has become very personal, and watches are experiencing the same problem. There are those like me who can accept both the traditional and the new, and those who are stubborn and only recognize the traditional, and there are quite a few who only recognize the new. However, no matter what the filling of the “faction”, you can not get around Bulgari, a brand of jewelry and watches that is suitable for both.
The general public’s perception of Bulgari is usually stuck in – “Italian jewelry family”. But Bulgari watches are really nothing new. In addition to the Octo Finissimo collection, which has been killing it in the ultra-thin watch world in recent years, Bvlgari actually launched a new watch back in 1998, named BVLGARI Aluminium, which means aluminium if you’ve passed English 6. So in fact Bulgari was innovative enough to invent the use of aluminium as a case material more than 20 years ago. Does it remind you of Audi’s all-aluminium body? It’s just that watch fans in those days only cared about the big traditional brands and didn’t pay much attention to brands like Bulgari that were known for their jewelry (like they still do?). Are the times moving on?)
In 2022 Bulgari is back with a new model on this model, and three in one go. They are the BVLGARI Aluminium Ducati, the Amerigo Vespucci and the Sorayama.
BVLGARI Aluminium Ducati
The first is just Ducati, the brand that gets men’s adrenaline pumping – the Italian national motorcycle Ducati. Obviously, this is a brand association and the dial color uses Ducati’s brand color, red. Italians seem to be quite fond of using red, and Ferrari’s logo color has that same tone.
The movement is also Bulgari’s own B130, which is part of the LVMH group, and with the financial and human resources of this large group, developing its own movement is indeed a matter of “sprinkling”, so I won’t go into details. On the back, there is no back glass, but rather a highly wearable titanium coating with a large Ducati logo, and a half circle of small letters at the bottom that clearly tells the buyer – I am a limited edition of 1000. The only little interesting thing is that there is actually a QR code like thing on the back near the 12 o’clock position, I tried to scan it and the result is …… Please scan it and see for yourself.
BVLGARI Amerigo Vespucci
Second is the Amerigo Vespucci, which is my favorite of the three new models, first because of the color scheme, the entire dial of which is: black, yellow and white as the main colors, but with the addition of small blocks of green and red. Is there anything to tell? Yes! Because these are the colors of the Italian Navy’s military flag – red, white and green.
Let’s take our eyes off the watch for a moment and look at a three-masted sailing ship, the Amerigo Vespucci, known as the most beautiful naval training ship and now, of course, as an Italian tourist attraction.
So what’s the connection between this watch and this ship? Bulgari is taking this watch to pay tribute to this three-masted sailing ship, which in turn is dedicated to a man – Amerigo Vespucci. who is it? Just look at the name. It’s called Amerigo, and America is called America, so he’s the Italian navigator who was used to name the American continent. Auntie? No, Auntie! Wasn’t the American continent discovered by Columbus? Are we going to tamper with the textbooks again? No, I’ll tell you a true story. It’s 100% true.
At the end of the 15th century, there was a popular legend that “the earth is round”, don’t laugh, it was so great to be able to say that the earth was round at that time. So with this argument, there was a famous navigator who wanted to prove it right. This navigator was called Christopher Columbus. He said that if the earth was round, then if you sailed all the way west from Europe, you would definitely reach the Indian continent! The said trip came and Columbus set sail under the patronage of the Queen of Spain, and in 1942 this fleet began to sail all the way west and eventually did sail to a continent. Columbus was arrogant – I really did sail to the Indian continent! But in fact, Columbus was only halfway there, and the continent he saw was a brand new continent of America, which he himself didn’t know, and only thought he had sailed to the Indian continent, so God Doodle sailed back. Then ah, another Italian navigator, Amerigo Vespucci, found this out and pointed out that the continent Columbus saw was not India, but a whole new place, and proved the existence of the American continent. So on April 25, 1507 AD, the German geographer Waldsee Miller marked the American continent on his map of the world as – America, named after Amerigo Vespucci. Thus, the American continent had its own name.
The real meaning of this new Aluminium Amerigo Vespucci by BVLGARI is in the talk above. The watch uses the GMT function, the inner 24-hour ring has a two-tone design, the 18:00 pm to 6:00 am section is yellow, the large triangle at the end of the GMT hand and the head and tail of the second hand are also yellow elements, I really like the GMT watch because it is a little more complicated than the traditional small and large three hands but not as easy to break as a real complicated watch, the repair and maintenance are much easier, and you can also pretend that you often have money to be able to travel across time zones for flying travel, all in one!
The case back is also engraved like the Ducati.
Non chi comincia ma quel che persevera
The last joint model of BVLGARI Aluminium Sorayama Bulgari is called Sorayama, pronounced in Japanese, and indeed it is, he is called: KongShanji.
What I like most about this watch is its dial polish, and although the brand says it’s some kind of automotive finish, I prefer to read it as straightforwardly being the classic Geneva fish scale pattern found on Swiss watches, as such a pattern used to be found only on the movement, which is the back of the case, and this time Bulgari has got it on the front, which is quite nice, and you don’t have to keep taking the watch off and turning it upside down to see it. Of course, you can say it doesn’t look good, but make sure you find a chance to try it on to see how it looks, maybe you’ll be the first to turn against it after seeing how it looks in person.