The snake I was never allowed to borrow
By Priya Nair, Singapore ยท
My aunt in Kochi had a gold Tubogas when I was little, and I spent most of one family wedding trying to unwind it from her arm while she pretended not to notice. She never let me borrow it. I have held the grudge ever since.
This version is steel: a 35 mm round case, 7 mm thick, silver dial, quartz, on the coiled Tubogas bracelet that wraps the wrist in spirals. Bulgari has been making that flexible tubular construction since the middle of the last century, and nobody else does it as convincingly. It doesn't buckle, it coils, which means fit depends entirely on your wrist and the length of the coil. Try it on before you buy. Always.
Quartz is correct here. You'll wear it for dinners and weddings, not daily, and nobody should have to reset a mechanical watch every time they open the jewellery box.
The downsides are mundane: 30 m of water resistance, and a bracelet that will happily collect sunscreen and hand cream in its grooves, so clean it. The list price of 7,000 to 9,500 dollars is steep for steel quartz, and most of it buys Bulgari's jewellery credentials rather than anything on the dial. Steel Serpenti resale is middling; gold is a different story. Still, if you want something that reads as jewellery first and a watch second, nothing at this price does it better.