Bulgari Aluminium Turns to Ice Blue and White for Summer

Bulgari’s Aluminium has always sat a little apart from conventional luxury sports watches.

First launched in 1998, it made rubber and aluminium feel deliberately stylish rather than merely practical, then returned in updated form with stronger everyday credentials.

The latest Ice Blue and White models sharpen that idea for warm weather, pairing the collection’s graphic personality with a cooler, cleaner palette.

At a glance

A 1998 outsider in fresher colours

The Bulgari Aluminium still feels unusual because it never tried to disguise its ingredients.

Its aluminium case, rubber bezel and prominent double Bulgari signature were bold choices in 1998, especially from a Roman jeweller better known for gold, gemstones and polished glamour.

That logo-led bezel has deeper roots in the brand’s watchmaking than it might first appear.

The 1977 Bulgari Bulgari used a bezel engraved with the name twice, echoing the inscriptions found on ancient Roman coins and turning branding into architecture.

The Aluminium translated that idea into something sportier, lighter and more unisex, with a look that has aged better than many late-1990s design experiments.

White rubber gives the Aluminium a lighter mood

For these two new models, the familiar black rubber bezel gives way to white rubber, matched by an integrated white rubber strap.

The result is less severe than the classic Aluminium, but it keeps the essential graphic punch of the collection.

Central sandblasted aluminium links run through the strap, adding articulation while visually tying it back to the case.

The 40mm case is made from sandblasted aluminium, while the caseback and crown are titanium, a useful pairing for a watch built around lightness and daily wear.

At 9.4mm thick, it keeps a relatively slim profile for a casual sports watch, and the 100-metre water resistance gives it the practical range expected from this kind of summer-leaning design.

Ice Blue or White, with very different personalities

The Ice Blue model is the more expressive of the pair.

Its sunray-brushed dial brings a colder aquatic tone, set against blue-varnished indices and hour and minute hands.

A red lacquered tip on the central seconds hand adds the one sharp accent, preventing the watch from becoming too monochrome.

The White opaline dial takes the opposite approach, using rhodium-plated indices and hands with white lacquered details for a quieter, cleaner read.

Both dials use the Aluminium’s signature layout, with large Arabic numerals at 12 and 6 o’clock, baton markers elsewhere and a date window at 3 o’clock.

Super-LumiNova appears on the tips of the hour and minute hands, a small but important practical detail on a watch clearly intended to move between city, travel and beach-adjacent use.

Automatic movement and collection positioning

Inside is Bulgari’s calibre B77, an automatic movement using a Sellita SW300 base.

It runs at 4Hz and offers a 42-hour power reserve, with hours, minutes, seconds and date functions.

The movement is hidden behind the titanium caseback, which suits the Aluminium’s focus on external design rather than mechanical theatre.

As a more accessible entry point into Bulgari watchmaking, the Aluminium occupies a useful place in the catalogue.

It doesn’t have the ultra-thin engineering drama of the Octo Finissimo, but it has a design identity that’s just as recognisable from across a room.

Details & Specifications

These two Aluminium models work because they don’t try to turn a famously unconventional design into something safer.

They simply change the temperature, giving Bulgari’s lightweight sports watch a brighter seasonal character while preserving the strange, confident charm that made the original memorable.