Best Complicated watch of the Year is by Bulgari

MANILA, Philippines - After the “Watch of the Year 2010” prize recently awarded in Switzerland, Bulgari received another from the Chinese specialized magazine Time Square.

Readers of the magazine voted the Bulgari Octo Grande Sonnerie Tourbillon, Gérald Genta Collection, as the Best Complicated Watch of the Year. The award was presented to Lelio Gavazza, managing director of the Chinese market for Bulgari.

 The Octo Grande Sonnerie tourbillon is undoubtedly the ultimate embodiment of horological complexity. The self-winding movement driving it features a Tourbillon regulator, a retrograde hours display, along with power-reserve indicators for both the movement and the striking mechanism.

The gongs are made from a dedicated steel alloy featuring a diameter similar to that of a piano string playing high notes. The Octo Grande Sonnerie Tourbillon is equipped with four such gongs, suspended between the movement and the inner surface of the case, and which are thus able to vibrate freely and to produce their respective sounds without any hindrance.

Thanks to these four gongs, the Octo Grande Sonnerie Tourbillon is capable of playing the Big Ben or Westminster Chime. It can also perform two other audible functions. In grande sonnerie (or grand strike) mode, the mechanism sounds the hours and then repeats the hour each time it prepares to sound the following quarters – the first, second and third – much like the chime of a belltower. The petite sonnerie(or small strike) mode signals the hours and the first, second and third quarters, also in passing. One may of course choose to switch to silent mode.

In the Philippines, Bulgari stores are located in Greenbelt 4 and 6750, Ayala Center, Makati.