Description

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 ref: 26239BC.GG.1224BC.01 is a limited edition of 200 pieces worldwide.

It is a visually disruptive manifestation of the iconic Royal Oak. The case and the bracelet are made in solid 18K white gold with a frosted finish – a traditional jewelry technique where the surface is intricately hammered with a diamond-tipped tool to create tiny indentations. These tiny dents play with the light giving the surface a matte, icy effect. The flanks of the bezel are mirror polished, breaking the rhythm between the bezel and the case.

It also helps in highlighting the vibrancy of the “Grande Tapisserie” guilloché dial in light grey.

This undeniably eye-catching dial displays the hours, minutes, date and chronograph, with two horizontal rhodium-toned counters at 3 and 9 o’clock for elapsed times and a smaller counter above the 6 o’clock for the running seconds. A small aperture between 4 and 5 displays the date. The luminous hands and indices are crafted in white gold.

The 41mm case, with a mere 12.4mm thickness, is very well balanced. It houses the Audemars Piguet’s in-house selfwinding calibre 4401 and provides 70hrs of power reserve.

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”.