Since its birth under the brilliant stroke of Gerald Genta in the early 1970s, the Royal Oak by Audemars Piguet has never stopped reinventing itself.
This is still the case this summer with new references coming to expand the collection.
Starting with a Royal Oak Frosted Gold Automatic with a diameter of only 34 mm (49,800 €), a model unveiled for the first time in April 2020, but produced here in 18-carat white gold hammered using the technique developed in 2016 in collaboration with Italian jewelry designer Carolina Bucci.
Diode SA - Denis Hayoun
Its collaboration with Audemars Piguet began in 2016 when the Manufacture asked the designer to reinterpret the Royal Oak for women initially designed by Jacqueline Dimier in 1976. Inspired by the Florentine hammering technique and specially adapted to decorate Audemars Piguet watches, the Frosted Gold consists of hammering gold in order to create tiny notches on the surface of the material using a tool topped with a diamond point.
This results in an elegant sparkle effect similar to that of gemstones or diamond dust.
Audemars Piguet
The case, bezel and hammered white gold bracelet of this new model thus highlight the new light blue tone of the dial, enriched with a “Grande Tapisserie” motif and white gold indexes echoing the case.
Through the sapphire crystal case-back, we admire the oscillating weight dedicated to the 34 mm models and the Caliber 5800 offering hour, minute, central second and date functions, and having a 50-hour power reserve.
Audemars Piguet
Audemars Piguet also unveiled this summer a superb Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar with a diameter of 41 mm (€ 115,300), available in steel or 18-carat pink gold.
Its dial offers new contrasting tones of blue.
Here, the counters and the flange of the “Grande Tapisserie” dial are adorned with the iconic blue of the very first Royal Oak, named in the Manufacture's archives as “Bleu Nuit, Nuage 50”.
With its four perfectly distributed counters, the dial of this Perpetual Calendar offers a perfect aesthetic balance, allowing the indication of the day, date, month, astronomical moon, leap years and hours and minutes to be read.
Diode SA - Denis Hayoun
Its 41mm satin-finished and hand-polished case is just 9.5mm thick.
She is married to a matching bracelet finished with an AP folding clasp.
Its self-winding Caliber 5134 has a complex system that automatically takes into account the number of days per month and displays the correct date accordingly, even in leap years.
Assuming that the coin is reassembled correctly, this date will not require any correction until the year 2100 to remain in perfect synchronization with the Gregorian calendar.
Diode SA - Denis Hayoun
For the record, the Gregorian calendar voluntarily omits three leap years every 400 years in order to remain in phase with solar time. A correction made possible by disregarding February 29 in the years of just centuries; which can be divided by 100 but not by 400. Thus, since 2100 will not be a leap year, movements with a perpetual calendar will then have to be manually advanced by one day. See you in 79 years!