The Duality of Time: A Tale of Two Ultra-Thins

Imagine a race where the leader shifts back and forth as quickly as a tennis ball on the courts. That is often what it feels like in the watch world when it comes to ultra-thin watches.

A very specific category of timepieces, with about a handful of serious players, ultra-thin watches have, historically, been very classic in looks (round, slim, and elegant) and, to some degree, technology.

Well, today’s players are throwing away the rule book, offering innovative new technology and creative designs that range from whimsical to unpredictable.

The idea of an ultra-thin mechanical wristwatch became the quest of a few brands back about 75 years ago in the 1950s. Unsurprisingly, over the ensuing decades and into the early 1970s, Piaget had the leading foothold.
 

However, mechanical watchmakers weren’t prepared for the rise of quartz watches in the 1970s and 1980s, and most fell prey to a new era of less expensive elegant watches that were also extremely thin because a quartz battery doesn’t need to stack as many parts as a mechanical watch.

Thus, it was during the Quartz Crisis that brands like Concord, with its 1.98mm-thin Delirium watch, stepped in.
 

However, as mechanical timepiece regained their supremacy and flourished – especially in the past two decades – watch lovers also became less enamored with chunky, oversized watches. Consequently, brands once again set about mastering the mechanical challenge and attempting to capture the “World’s Thinnest” title.

Piaget once again rose to stardom and began delivering ultra-thin mechanical watches that were stealing hearts. So too did Bulgari, which was an unexpected brand when it first entered the playing field, but the Roman brand has consistently led the pack, running neck-and-neck with Piaget year after year.
 

Still, once in a while, brands like Richard Mille, Vacheron Constantin, and Audemars Piguet stepped in – each taking a title for a limited time.

Just like making the thinnest mechanical watch is a grand feat – one that comes down to shaving fractions of millimeters off the width of a movement – so, too, is garnering the “world’s thinnest” title in different sub-categories of watches, as in the world’s thinnest tourbillon, the world’s thinnest perpetual calendar, or the world’s thinnest GMT.
 

Then, of course, there are the world’s thinnest “concept” watches that the inventing brands hope will one day come to fruition as production watches.

As mentioned, the ultra-slim competition is almost like a tennis game, including volleys, top spins, jump smashes, and even love. That is why, today, we are taking a closer look at two juxtaposing design techniques that both led to current world-record-holder, ultra-thin watches and have a thickness of about 1/15th-of-an-inch each.

In April of this year, Bulgari smashed the current records with its all-new 1.7mm thick Octo Finissimo Ultra COSC, which is the first COSC-certified ultra-thin chronometer. Yes, we have just split hairs again with this new category (COSC certification) of ultra-thin mechanical watches.
 

Essentially, this new watch, which has a 40mm diameter and is as thick as two stacked credit cards, is a thinner, more robust version of Bulgari’s 2022 Octo Finissimo Ultra. More specifically, the Octo Finissimo Ultra COSC uses its ultra-hard tungsten carbide caseback as the mainplate for 170 components that comprise the hand-wound BVL 180’s movement.
 

From there, the hours and minute dials are spread out across the diameter, as is the large barrel that offers 50 hours of power reserve. As a result, the dial has an off-set regulator-style display and eliminates the need for stacked hands. Moreover, instead of a standard crown, the watch uses horizontal knobs on each side of the case.
 

The overall look of the watch is at once both elegant and intriguing. However, what is most interesting about this limited-production watch is that it was designed to actually be worn, not sit in a safe.

Shaking things up a bit, independent Russian watchmaker Konstantin Chaykin wowed the world a few weeks ago during Geneva Watch Days when he unveiled the new “smiley-faced” ThinKing watch. However, before we go on, it is imperative to stress that this technically advanced (yet playfully designed) timepiece is still only a prototype.
 

Measuring only 1.65mm in thickness, it broke the 1.7mm record of Bulgari’s Octo Finissimo Ultra COSC. That said, the ThinKing Prototype 2 is not a COSC-certified chronometer. Instead, it now holds the record for the world’s thinnest mechanical watch, full stop.

In research and development for more than a year, the idea for the ThinKing had been a seedling in Chaykin’s mind for more than 20 years – ever since he had laid hands on a 200-year-old Auguste Golay ultra-thin pocket watch. Over the years, though, as Chaykin developed his watchmaking, that seedling was growing in his mind.
 

Then, in 2023, he finally decided it was time to try his hand at creating an ultra-thin watch. Naturally, he looked to combine technical advancements with the much-loved whimsical style of the Wristmon collection, which meant, while designing the movement of the ThinKing, Chaykin needed to create separate hour and minute displays to form the eyes.

Of course, on other Wristmon watches, a moonphase display usually acts as the joker’s smile; however, incorporating a moonphase in the ultra-slim movement wasn’t feasible. Instead, the smile is the brand’s logo curved into an arc on the watch’s cover.
 

To many, the look of an outer flat case with smaller inset sapphire crystals is incredibly reminiscent of the 1.75mm-thick Richard Mille RM UP-01 Ferrari that turned heads and set world records in 2022. But there is a reason for the resemblance. Chaykin admits that he studied the “excellent design of the Richard Mille RM UP-01” watch and analyzed all its aspects.

And while some may still believe Chaykin cribbed off of Richard Mille’s design, isn’t that what most technological advancement is all about? Studying the best of the best that came before and then finding new and different ways to execute your own design?
 

And while some may still believe Chaykin cribbed off of Richard Mille’s design, isn’t that what most technological advancement is all about? Studying the best of the best that came before and then finding new and different ways to execute your own design?

Indeed, so proprietary is the automatic winding ThinKing Prototype 2 and its technical developments that Chaykin has filed three patents on it.