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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.
The first model released was the reference 5402 known today as the “Royal Oak A series”, with a thin automatic calibre 2121 movement that is still made today. Since they treated steel as gold, the level of finishing was remarkable and so was the retail price, for comparison purpose a similar Rolex sport watch was 10x cheaper.
Today, Audemars Piguet still produces a range of Royal Oaks in different sizes (33 to 41mm) for ladies and men, from titanium, rose gold, yellow gold and platinum metals, various dial colours and with different complications.
*The present model is the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Quartz 67601BA.ZZ.1230BA.01, it has a 33mm case in yellow gold with the diamonds bezel and the famous eight screws on it are in white gold for a solid contrast. This surrounds a fantastic silver/white dial with « Grand Tapisserie » pattern. Around it in yellow gold are the indexes and the hours & minutes hands. The date window is located at 3 o’clock while the AP logo is displayed at 12 o’clock.
And a quartz movement is hidden under this dial and protected by a solid case-back. Once the full yellow gold bracelet with AP folding clasp is fixed around the wrist you can fully enjoy this shinny beauty!
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”.
