This Is the Sixth—and Sleekest—Watch Ever from Bovet Fleurier and Pininfarina

Bovet’s sixth watch in conjunction with Pininfarina is its sleekest.

The movement is a little like a diamond,” explains Paolo Trevisan, head of design at the renowned Italian design firm Pininfarina, which for the last six years has been collaborating with Bovet Fleurier in Switzerland on an exclusive series of timepieces. “We wanted to treat it the way jewelers do when the stone is floating and you can appreciate light from different angles.” The latest fruit of the partnership, dubbed OttantaSei for Pininfarina’s 86th year in business, is indeed an open and well-lit timepiece with sapphire crystals on the front, back, and sides of the case. Its appearance, however, was not the product of a conventional design process most people associate with a top-flight design house like Pininfarina. Instead, the watch evolved from the close relationship between Pininfarina’s designers and the development team at Bovet.

“We work with every little detail in the mechanics and the finishing, and the only possible way to do that is to work side by side with their experts,” continues Trevisan. “The design is really a tennis match. We do one step and send it to them. They play with it and send it back with comments.” Pininfarina’s opening volley in this exchange outlined the watch’s most distinctive qualities: its svelte proportions—wide, yet much slimmer than previous editions—and four generous sapphire crystals illuminating the movement inside. Bovet responded with technical updates, including a more powerful differential-based winding system to efficiently load up the single barrel with a 10-day power reserve. The assembly also includes a concentric power-reserve indication actuated by an elaborate cone-and-finger system.

Many of these technical details are less apparent to the eye than modern lines and multiple textures and finishes—touches Bovet and Pininfarina have established collectively for this series of watches. “There’s a nice flow when design and engineering speak the same language and share the same vision,” adds Trevisan. “Engineers normally try to simplify their life. In this case they are just as creative as us.”
Bovet Fleurier, 888.909.1822, (bovet.com)

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