Super Snake: Introducing The BVLGARI x MB&F Serpenti

MB&F and Bulgari may seem like unlikely partners, but the two companies have actually worked together before, in 2021. That year, Max Büsser and Fabrizzio Buonamassa Stigliani (MB&F’s founder and Bulgari’s creative director for watches) created a high jewelry version of one of MB&F’s Legacy Machines. This was the Flying T Allegra, a lavishly gem-bedecked version of the Flying T tourbillon, which has as its centerpiece a 60 second flying tourbillon elevated above the dial, with large colored gemstones appearing to orbit the tourbillon.

The Bulgari x MB&F Flying T Allegra, 2021

The collaboration had begun as a result of a conversation between Max Büsser and Fabrizio several years earlier at Dubai Watch Week, and it was certainly a showcase for the two company’s respective signature strengths – the use of colored stones at Bulgari, and the creation of time-telling kinetic sculptures for the wrist, built around bespoke mechanisms, at MB&F. This year, the two creators have produced something which is both totally unexpected and which at the same time, seems like an extremely logical – almost inevitable – synthesis: the Bulgari x MB&F Serpenti.

Fans of MB&F’s work will notice that the engine for the Serpenti is based on the movement originally created for the HM10 Bulldog, including the flying balance, and two rotating domes for the hours and minutes.

The MB&F HM10 Bulldog

The Bulldog’s power reserve indicator, in the shape of a stylized, sharp-toothed dog’s mouth, has been omitted in the Serpenti in favor of a conventional power reserve hand, which lets you seen the bridgework and wheels hidden by the jaws of the Bulldog.

The power reserve indicator is just about the only conventional thing about the Serpenti. The entire case is shaped like the head of a snake, with four upper curved sapphire panels. The two on the side represent the snake’s eyes, animated by the rotating disks, whose numbers are coated with Super-LumiNova. The large (14mm) balance is elevated above the dials and sits just underneath the uppermost sapphire panel.

Overall dimensions are 53 x 39 x 18 mm, and water resistance is 30 meters; achieving a 30 meter rating was a challenge thanks to the complex case shape and the difficulty of fitting the curved sapphire panels to the case.

The Bulgari x MB&F Serpenti is being offered in three different versions: steel with black PVD coating, rose gold, and titanium. At launch, the Serpenti is $148,00 in titanium or steel, and $170,000 in rose gold, and you won’t be surprised to hear that it’s a limited edition – just 33 pieces in each case metal.

The creation of the watch was a careful balancing act – obviously, both Bulgari and MB&F wanted a watch that would equally reflect and successfully synthesize the design codes of the two companies, and Fabrizio Buonamassa Stigliani created hundreds of design drawings during the process of conceptualizing the design.

The design sketches are works of art in themselves – they’re drawn freehand, with incredible vitality and fluidity, and that energy has found its way into the final result.

The case and sapphire panels were both extremely difficult to produce – both are made up entirely of complex three dimensional curves, and machining and fitting the various components was as challenging a process as finalizing the design itself.

Max Büsser says, “At MB&F we specialize in ‘kinetic sculptures which give time’ so it was definitely our calling. Nevertheless, the biomorphic design of this watch created enormous challenges in terms of the case but also the movement. The intricate case is entirely machined with 5-axis 3D mills and holds the five sapphire crystals which were not only extremely complicated to make but equally challenging to fit due to the curved nature of the case and the desire for a water resistance of 30 meters.”

If you’re thinking that the Serpenti also seems influenced by automotive design, you’re right – both Max and Fabrizio are auto design enthusiasts and that inspiration’s been seen in some of the Horological Machines as well – in the HM5, for instance, with its louvered upper case panel, or the driver’s watch HMX. The back upper crystal of the Serpenti has louvers as well, but it’s subtle – they’re machined directly into the sapphire itself.

The two questions that the Bulgari x MB&F Serpenti raises are, to what extent is this successful as a design in its own right, and to what extent is it successful as an integration of the Serpenti with MB&F’s designs? I think the watches are an unqualified success on both counts. They retain the serpentine appeal of the other Serpenti watches, but in a design in which some of the more naturalistic features of Bulgari’s Serpenti watches – the reproduction of the scales of a snake, for instance – are omitted, which allows the visual codes of both creators to be combined in a much more integrated fashion than if, for instance, scales had been etched onto the surface of the case.

Collaborations have become virtually ubiquitous in modern watchmaking and as more and more brands seek to create both collaborations with other watch brands, and collaborations with influences from other worlds like the fine arts and the automotive world, we see some that are more successful than others. There are a lot of ways collabs can go off the rails; collaborations may favor one collaborator over another, or they may feel unimaginative and rote (the use of carbon fiber in automotive themed watches is a case in point, although that’s a trope the industry seems to have more or less left behind) or the design elements of each collaborator may simply fail to be well integrated.

The Bulgari x MB&F Serpenti watches are wonderful design successes in themselves (if you ask me) but they are also an example, well worth studying, of how to do a collaboration in a way that respects the identity of each collaborator, and synthesizes them as well, to produce a result with an identity all its own.

The BVLGARI x MB&F Serpenti Watches: cases, 53mm x 39mm x 18mm, 30M water resistance, in gold, black PVD-coated steel, or titanium, with five sapphire crystals with double AR coating. Double crown system; the crown on the left for winding and on the right, for setting the time. Movement, in-house MB&F caliber with domes for the hours (on the left) and minutes (on the right); power reserve indicator on the underside of the movement. $148,000 in titanium or steel, and $170,000 in rose gold. 

The 1916 Company is proud to be an authorized retailer for BVLGARI watches; view our collection of pre-owned Horological and Legacy Machines from MB&F.