Introducing The 2024 BVLGARI BVLGARI In Yellow Gold

The BVLGARI BVLGARI watch presents an immediate challenge to the intrepid watch journalist, to wit: to capitalize, or not to capitalize? Over the years I have worked with several editors who have felt (and this is a camp which I have occasionally been in myself) that to style Bulgari “BVLGARI” in general, and to style Bulgari Bulgari, BVLGARI BVLGARI, is to knuckle under to the brand and give up all semblance of journalistic integrity. There are lots of hills to die on in luxury journalism but unlike other forms of journalism, they are almost always likely to be deaths as pointless as the one at the end of All Quiet On The Western Front, so the heck with it, I’m styling it the way it appears on the watch; and besides, I like the watch, I like the ALL CAPS and in this business, you find your fun where you can.

You can find a lot of fun in this, the most recent version of a BVLGARI BVLGARI in yellow gold. The history of the design goes back further than you might think, and the very first version of the watch was in yellow gold as well. Since the first Bulgari Roma watch was introduced, in yellow gold, in 1975, Bulgari has periodically released various mechanical versions of the BVLGARI BVLGARI and Bulgari Roma watches with both quartz and mechanical movements, and in just about every case material you can imagine. The very first of the family was a somewhat odd bird, by modern standards.

The Bulgari Roma of 1975 was definitely That ’70s Watch. It was yellow gold, fairly small at 33mm x 7.5mm, had an LCD display (and quartz movement, of course) and it came on a macramé hemp (hemp!) strap, just in case you had any lingering doubts as to its ’70s style bona fides. Bulgari only made a hundred of them, and they weren’t for sale – they were given out as Christmas gifts to the companies best clients, at the Via Condotti store in Rome.

The next step in the evolution of the BVLGARI BVLGARI was a redesign, by none other than Gérald Genta. While the first mechanical Bulgari Roma watch was released as early as 1976, the first true BVLGARI BVLGARI was released in 1977. The basic design of the BVLGARI BVLGARI has remained unchanged ever since. Bulgari released a limited edition of 250 pieces of the Bulgari Roma in yellow gold in 2014; in 2017, the company released a very attractive Finissimo extra-flat Bulgari Roma in yellow gold, hand-wound, with the Finissimo BVL-128 movement.

This year’s BVLGARI BVLGARI comes in four versions. Two 38mm automatics are powered by Bulgari’s in-house “Solotempo” caliber BVL-191 (which is, more or less, Bulgari’s entry level automatic movement) and is offered in rose gold with a white dial, or yellow gold with a black dial. Two smaller, 28mm watches, are quartz-powered, and also come in rose gold with a white dial, or yellow gold with a black dial. Bulgari’s announced that the 38mm gold models will be offered at $13,000, and the 28mm quartz models will be offered at $8150. It is I think worth pointing out that the new BVLGARI BVLGARI at 38mm, in gold, is about half as expensive at launch as the Finissimo-powered Bulgari Roma.

Caliber “Solotempo” BVL-191

Whether or not you find the idea of the BVLGARI BVLGARI watches appealing depends pretty much entirely on how on-board you are with the design as a design, and with the brashly particular character of the BVLGARI BVLGARI and Bulgari Roma watches specifically, as well as with what they represent historically. Yellow gold was, not all that long ago, more or less dismissed by both the industry and enthusiasts as something of a fuddy-duddy case material – the kind of thing you might see on a watch on your uncle, grandpa, or great aunt, but certainly not on a watch worn by anyone with the slightest pretentions to being what you might call horologically au courant. However, several years of resurgent interest in vintage and neo-vintage high design timepieces from the likes of Cartier and Piaget, and others, has gone a long way towards rehabilitating yellow gold and what used to be about as glamorous as a second-hand Buick, is now a signifier of insider good taste. So the pendulum swings.

With respect to what the BVLGARI BVLGARI represents, it is if you like that sort of thing, an extroverted, unashamedly luxurious exercise in watchmaking as a luxury fashion statement. Fashion is temporary and style is enduring, and I think that since 1975, the BVLGARI BVLGARI has shown that while it may have been fashionable at launch, it has style to burn and has become a modern watch design icon in its own right. It is in this incarnation, also an almost unbelievably affordable (relatively speaking) way to get into an historically significant, design-forward watch design from the 1970s, especially when you consider what similar value propositions from the aforementioned Cartier and Piaget, to say nothing of brands like Patek and Audemars, will cost you.

Of course there are reasons why, say, a gold Jumbo is always going to be orders of magnitude more expensive than a BVLGARI BVLGARI but those reasons are surprisingly subjective. As a design-forward timepiece from a real brand, with real history, and the mind of one of modern watchmaking’s most important designers behind it, the BVLGARI BVLGARI 2024 edition is, if you ask me, pretty hard to beat. Find out more at Bulgari.com.