The ‘Royal Oak’ overturned the prevailing codes in 1972 during a period of existential crisis for the watch industry due to the boom of the cheap Quartz watches made in Asia.
The company had to come with a bold, solid stainless sports steel luxury watch, they gave the mission to Gerald Genta to design it.
He got the inspiration from a deep-sea-diving helmet, the result was an octagonal bezel, visible mounting screws, a large case of 39mm with an integrated bracelet, a very futuristic design for the seventies.
Within 2-3 years they sold about 1000 watches establishing a new segment within the industry and pioneered the popularity and desirability of the steel sports luxury watch.

– In 1993 the standard Royal Oak being already 20 years old, the brand looking for a younger generation clientele came with a very polarised design with the “Royal Oak Offshore” people in the industry calling it “The Beast”.
The shocking 42mm for that time, with apparent rubber seal on the bezel, the rubber pushers were in contrast to the elegant Royal Oak but the Offshore turned out to be a great success.

*This timepiece has the famous octagonal case in sandblasted titanium of 44mm surrounding a black skeleton dial. Hours & minutes hands are in white gold and indicates time on gold hour markers. The chronograph hand is in orange and activated by the ceramic push-piece on the right side of the case. The 30-minute counter in black with orange touch is visible at 3 o’clock while the 60-minute counter at 9 o’clock is all white. But the main feature of this beast is the gorgeous tourbillon visible at 6 o’clock! The manual winding movement is visible from both sides and has a power-reserve of 72-hours. The comfortable black rubber strap will hold this beauty around a lucky wrist.

Audemars Piguet – bio

Audemars Piguet is a Swiss manufacturer of mechanical watches founded in 1875. They began in the Vallée de Joux. Jules Louis Audemars formed a partnership with Edward Auguste Piguet. Audemars created complicated blank watch movements for other manufactures to use. Piguet specialized in the final regulation of watches. They then split responsibilities when they began their own company. Audemars was in charge of production and technical aspects while Piguet focused on sales and management. One of their first achievements was creating the first repeater wristwatch in 1892 and in 1972 the iconic steel “Royal Oak”.