Bvlgari and Piaget have famously battled back and forth for the record for many years, with every new cycle of releases seemingly bringing a new achievement in thinness from one or the other. Recently, however, new players have inserted themselves into the conversation. Before Rocky’s Octo, Richard Mille’s RM UP-01 was the thinnest watch in the world at 1.75 mm. (Fellow Met co-chair Pharrell loves and wears that watch a lot—I wonder if he and Rocky talked about their love for record-breaking timepieces.) But newcomer Konstantin Chaykin stole the record last August when it released the 1.65 mm-thin ThinKing Prototype.
As the stakes get higher and the watches get slimmer, watch brands have been settling for slices of the record if they can’t get the whole pie. Last April, Piaget introduced the world’s thinnest watch with a tourbillon at 2 mm, but Bvlgari quickly punched back here, too. This year, the brand released an even thinner tourbillon watch that measures just 1.85 mm. It’s a really fun rivalry to track over the years.
When it comes to ultra-thin watches, it’s hard to decipher the actual differences without the help of calipers. At this point, collectors at this level are now picking between these models based on looks and understanding they’re getting one of the world’s most technically impressive timepieces. While Pharrell prefers his Richard Mille, on Monday night Rocky cast his vote for the Octo Finissimo Ultra.