There is design chemistry between Max Busser, Founder of MB&F, and Fabrizio Buonamassa Stigliani, Product Creation Executive Director at Bvlgari Horlogerie. The duo have a shared passion when it comes to visual codes, particularly automobiles, which shows in the aesthetics of their new collaboration, the Bvlgari x MB&F Serpenti. Busser and Buonamassa already worked together in 2021. The result was the MB&F x Bvlgari LM FlyingT Allegra, which brought the exuberant, colourful world of Bvlgari jewellery into MB&F’s Legacy Machines. For this second timepiece, they chose to reimagine the classic Bvlgari Serpenti.
Max Busser (left) and Fabrizio Buonamassa Stigliani discuss the different designs for the new Bvlgari x MB&F Serpenti.
This new project has taken Bvlgari’s iconic wristwear from 1948, the Serpenti, and rendered it with 21st century aesthetics and materials. It was essentially a female high jewellery piece with a watch in the serpent’s head. The new Bvlgari x MB&F Serpenti brings a futuristic gender-neutral design to the classic, where the whole watch is an abstracted mechanical art piece in the shape of a snake’s head.
Like a car, the visual experience of the Bvlgari x MB&F Serpenti changes depending on your viewing angle. It is also impacted by the case material, of which there are three different versions, each limited to only 33 pieces. The first comes in a grade 5 titanium case with blue hour and minute domes, the second is housed in an 18K rose gold case and features piercing green eyes, and a third version is crafted from black PVD-coated stainless steel and comes alive with vibrant red eyes.
From left to right: the black PVD-coated stainless steel Bvlgari x MB&F Serpenti with red components, the 18kt rose gold case in green, and the grade 5 titanium case with blue hour and minute domes.
The case for the new Serpenti has that sleek automotive bodywork look complete with a “stepped” sapphire crystal shaped like the flaps on the rear window of a sports car, along with crowns that could easily be mistaken for car wheels. The left crown is at 11 o’clock for winding, and the right crown is at one o’clock for setting the time.
Parts of the movement also appear as car engine-like components, including a grille with the famous hexagonal scale motif seen on previous Serpenti creations. There are arching lines from the rear of the watch that slope towards a narrower gathering by the nose of the Serpenti. You might miss the snake design from above, but staring down the nose, it is particularly apparent, with the forward lugs shaped as fangs.
Despite the large dimensions of the watch, it fits easily on the wrist because of the shaped lugs. On the left, the titanium with blue display domes, and on the right, the rose gold with green display.
From the MB&F side, the watch has elements from past timepieces, most notably the HM10 Bulldog and the HMX. The rear end parts to the Serpenti derive directly from the HMX, the overall layout for the movement, including how to read the time, from the Bulldog. The time is read in the same manner as the HM10 from the two domed displays at the front of the watch —one for hours on the left and one for minutes on the right. The “brain” in the centre is a floating, flying, 14mm balance wheel suspended from a dual pronged bridge. The watch is large, at 39mm wide by 53mm from top to bottom, with an 18mm depth, and although it sounds unwearable the sculptured lugs curve the watch so it feels supple and comfortable on the wrist.
The new movement to the Bvlgari x MB&F Serpenti showing the time domes and the large escapement wheel.
The watch is the very zenith of what can be achieved with collaborative ventures in the watch world, reinterpreting an already acknowledged design classic for a modern aesthetic, an innovative proprietary new movement, providing a new timepiece unlike anything else. POA.
Author: Andrew Hildreth
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