Audemars Piguet
ROYAL OAK EXTRA-THIN
Setting the gold standard for classic and contemporary
In 2016, Audemars Piguet released a version of its Royal Oak watch in yellow gold. It had done exactly the same in 1977, when the Royal Oak was only five years old, previously only available in stainless steel and, as the world’s first luxury sports watch, leading a new sector for the watch industry. Forty years on, the Royal Oak is a genuine icon of horology (how many other watches could you identify from their silhouette?), luxury sports watches are the bedrock of high-end watchmaking and yellow gold has made a surprise comeback.
In the last 20 years, rose gold has been the predominant type of gold used in making men’s watches. If you saw a man wearing a yellow gold watch, he was either old enough to have acquired one back when they were last stylish, the son of one of those men wearing a beloved heirloom, or a gangster in The Sopranos.
“In watchmaking, yellow gold had almost completely disappeared,” says Tim Sayler, the chief marketing officer of Audemars Piguet. “It’s a bit too early to call its comeback a trend, but we helped create something when we used it again. There is also the rise in vintage watches, and through that a lot of yellow gold was being seen, on style leaders in particular. We picked up on that and it felt like the right time to bring it back, and we were probably the first watchmaker to do so in a mainstream collection.”
Last year came the yellow gold Royal Oak and now comes the Royal Oak ExtraThin in 18-carat yellow gold, with an 18-carat bracelet to match. The name ExtraThin is no boast: the watch is only 8.1mm at its thickest because the self-winding movement is a physics-defying 3.05mm thin. Available with either a striking blue dial or the subtler champagne-coloured face [pictured], both have yellow gold hour-markers.
The rise in vintage watches, Sayler notes, has allowed leading watch brands to revisit their archives for ideas. At Audemars Piguet, an inspirational trip back in time is a relatively simple journey: the company’s museum is a five-minute drive down the road from its main watchmaking facility, in the village of Le Brassus in Switzerland. In October 2016, ground was broken on an extension to the museum, designed by Bjarke Ingels Group, the hottest name in architecture right now, to better showcase one of the world’s great historical watch collections.
“We have enlarged our heritage collection during the last five years by about 200 pieces,” says Sebastian Vivas. Audemars Piguet’s heritage and museum director. “That’s about a third of the collection in total. It’s a very, very important effort for the company, and it’s also linked to the fact that we are building the new museum.”
The work of Vivas and his team is also crucial for the company’s creative working on new and future ranges of watches. But, Vivas says, capitalising on brand heritage is a complicated balancing act. “Other companies have started to recreate historical pieces, and to build their new collections on that, exclusively or nearly exclusively. We don’t want to do that.
“We want to create a mix between the past and the future. To build a future by knowing and respecting the past, but not by reproducing it, because the past is the past: it’s gone. We want to talk to the younger generations while respecting the golden rules of craftsmanship. You cannot move forward because you are looking, always, at the back.”
Tim Sayler says: “We have a very strong authentic story, but we’re using contemporary language and tools to tell that story. We have kept our focus on quality and through our brand DNA, the design of, say, the Royal Oak and other watches, we still manage to attract millennials and a younger clientele without having to come up with something special for them. We’re not ageing with our customers.”
Timeless design also helps counter any ageing process. There isn’t a hint of anachronism about the Royal Oak ExtraThin. It feels contemporary and classic, a product of its time but also proof, 40 years on, that the Royal Oak design was somewhat ahead of its time. Like other great design pieces, it can be embraced by subsequent generations.
“An AP watch you buy for the same reason you buy a piece of art,” says Sayler. “It’s pure emotion and admiration of the beauty and the craftsmanship in it, and the way it fascinates you.”
In the case of the yellow gold Royal Oak Extra-Thin, the fascination endures.
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