WHEN THE EXTRAORDINARY STANDS STILL
This mysterious-spirited 200-piece limited series offers a well-known French artist a one-of-a-kind medium on which he delivers a somewhat enigmatic scenescape.
Laurent Grasso fashions an eclectic world where anachronism and mystery reign supreme. His works of art spark the imagination to unveil the invisible. His personal notion of time fascinates with its subjective abstraction. The Rome-based firm’s Executive Director of Watch Design, Fabrizio Buonamassa Stigliani, wished to create “a watch that speaks of time not as a measurement but as a space shaped by a metaphysical concept”. For the French artist, the dial of a watch lends itself as such to exploring this virtually-philosophical approach. The Octo Finissimo x Laurent Grasso was born out of this partnership with Bvlgari. This creation stands out through the presence of a delicate, metallic-pigment-enhanced, screen-printed cloud floating in a sky shimmering with rainbow-hued glints.
The sculptural 40 mm, and just 5 mm high, sandblasted titanium case coated with blue PVD becomes a backdrop for this enigmatic masterpiece. It hosts the ultra-slim selfwinding movement that meticulously drives the pair of hour and minute hands. The BVL 138 caliber boasts traditional hand-crafted adornments and finishes including Côtes de Genève patterns, circular-graining and chamfering. This device also dazzles through its performance as it features a comfortable power reserve of 60 hours. And, as Bvlgari states, “Laurent Grasso sees each of his creations as a “machine” that allows him to observe the world in a new and poetic way”. This exceptional timepiece perfectly conjures up this train of thought.
