A Closer Look At The New Bulgari Aluminium GMT

When Bulgari launched its Aluminium watch back in 1998, the brand touted the timepiece as “the first luxury watch made of aluminum, topped with a rubber bezel.” The launch was marked with a literal takeoff – a larger-than-life watch painted on an Alitalia Boeing 747, the first true jumbo jet with two aisles.

Now, with the world slowly opening again for air travel (fingers crossed it stays that way), Bulgari is introducing a bold, colorful GMT timepiece to its modern Aluminium collection, and it’s ready for takeoff.

The new Aluminium GMT has many of the same design features that characterized last year’s re-launched watches – an aluminum and rubber strap and rubber bezel stamped “BVLGARI.” However, this watch has a GMT complication perfect for intrepid travelers wanting to track a second time zone. Plus, it has a strap and bezel featuring a rich shade of blue.

The additional time zone is denoted by a 24-hour scale on the outside of the dial, with the lower half having a red background and the upper half a blue background. In addition to the three hands tracking seconds, minutes, and hours, a fourth, red-tipped arrow hand indicates the hour of the second time zone.
 

Moreover, this latest addition to the Bvlgari Aluminium family features a date aperture at 3 o’clock and Super-LumiNova-coated hour markers and hands, a glow-in-the-dark feature that comes in handy in dark airplane cabins.

In 1998, the Aluminium GMT could have been found on the iconic Boeing 747 aircraft, which is now being retired. Today, the Aluminium GMT can most likely be found on a Boeing 777 or Airbus A380.