Bovet and design powerhouse Pininfarina have been collaborating on decidedly novel watch concepts since 2010, including the Cambiano, Sergio, Ottanta, and Ottantasei. This time, the duo introduces the Bovet Pininfarina Aperto 1 watch (which stands for Open 1 in Italian), a fitting name for an openworked watch that, in true Bovet fashion, features the brand’s Amadeo system that has allowed select Bovet wristwatches to be transformed into pocket watches, pendants, or table clocks — a really cool feature you might want to research deeper.
For the Bovet Pininfarina Aperto 1 watch, the Amadeo system is used to allow for a quick and easy changing of the straps — each piece comes with two straps in the box, but getting tailor-made ones from a low-production, bespoke brand like Bovet I imagine shouldn’t be a hardship. More importantly, the Aperto 1 watch sports what the brand claims to be an all-new movement, albeit with some notable trademark features retained.
The Bovet Caliber 15BMPF09-OW might not have the most sonorous name, but it makes up for it in several technical and aesthetic ways. Bovet is understandably proud of its in-house crafts, which include the fabrication of most parts such as the plates, bridges, hands, dials, and cases, as well as the hairspring and regulating organ — an impressive list few others even in this elevated segment of exclusive luxury watches can come close to. Bovet also refers to itself as “The Guardian of Swiss Handcrafted Watchmaking,” which is a bit lofty but, again, in the world of sourced cases, dials, movements, and escapement parts, it can’t be taken from them that a lot of effort is dedicated to upkeeping these traditional crafts.
On that note, Bovet exercises a level of transparency rarely encountered in this segment, specifying various movement-finishing processes in great detail. According to the brand, each movement undergoes at least 10 hours of hand-finishing just for the plates and bridges alone. The techniques used include PVD or CVD coating (depending on whether black or tantalum gray color is required); bead blasting where not deforming the components and maintaining a uniform orientation of the grains is a challenge; graining of the flanks; polishing of the bevels; polishing of stone gouges and screws; perlage, circular Côtes de Genève; polishing, and anglage are all executed.
Bovet even goes on to say that these details “should be viewed through a loupe to be completely appreciated.” I underscore this because although we might take such a statement as omnipresent in the world of 50,000-dollar watches, it actually is quite rare for the bigger brands to invite customers to inspect their expensive watches up close — the simple reason being that they are often decorated more by machines than by hand.
The Bovet Pininfarina Aperto 1 watch has a grade 5 titanium case for lightness (the entire watch, with straps and buckle included, weighs just 63 grams) and measures 42mm wide. You can expect this hand-wound, time-only watch to be reasonably thin, even with the massive barrel that provides the 7-day autonomy — and indeed it is, at 10.95mm thick. The case appears to be a simple round shape at first, but then reveals its complex curves compounded by the crown’s placement at 12 o’clock. In fact, it is the lug-to-lug measurement, if anything, that requires consideration, as both the articulating lugs and the way the straps are connected add a fair bit to the “height” of the Aperto 1.
The Bovet Pininfarina Aperto 1 watch is priced at 57,000 USD and is available in a yellow and a blue version. Given the unique design, the highly limited production quantity, and the painstaking execution, that is a lot of watch — for a lot of money. You can learn more at the brand’s website.
