Audemars Piguet is a luxury Swiss watch company founded in 1875 by Jules-Louis Audemars and Edward-Auguste Piguet. The company is known for its high-end timepieces, which are often made with precious materials such as gold, platinum, and diamonds. Audemars Piguet is based in the village of Le Brassus in the Vallée de Joux, Switzerland, and has a reputation for producing some of the finest and most complicated mechanical watches in the world. The company has a long history of innovation and has been responsible for several important advancements in the field of watchmaking, including the development of the first wristwatch with a perpetual calendar and the first wristwatch with a minute repeater. Audemars Piguet watches are highly prized by collectors and are considered to be among the finest watches available.
Audemars Piguet
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1967
A FEAT OF MECHANICS Calibre 2120 was born in 1967 in the Jura Mountains from the collaboration of LeCoultre & Cie, Audemars Piguet, and Vacheron Constantin. This mechanism powered the first high-end sports watch by Audemars Piguet, a 100-year-old manufacturer, a few years later.
1970
THE FIRST SKETCH Audemars Piguet's then-Managing Director, Georges Golay, called Gérald Genta on April 11, 1970, at 4 p.m. and asked him to design "an unprecedented steel watch" for the next morning. The designer recalled a childhood memory that inspired him to create these protective headpieces: seeing divers prepare to plunge into the Rhône, their lives dependent on the watertightness of their helmets.
1971
PATENTED INNOVATION An octagonal bezel with eight hexagonal screws through the steel casing and eight nuts squeezing a huge gasket is ridiculous! Casemakers doubted the watch's viability. Gold, a more malleable substance than steel, was requested for practise.
1976
FOR WOMEN Absolutely radical! Jacquline Dimier designed the first Royal Oak for women. The proportions were rethought, but its core codes—straight lines, steel case, integrated bracelet, Tapisserie dial, hand finishes, and selfwinding movement—remained.
1984
BETWEEN EARTH MOON AND SKY The Royal Oak's Calibre 2120/2800 perpetual calendar movement met two legends in 1984. A groundbreaking system that revived problems following the quartz crisis. A futuristic octagonal watch promises many surprises.
1997
DEFYING GRAVITY The Le Brassus watchmakers added a tourbillon to the Royal Oak's 25th anniversary watch to honour the complication's revival. They built the 80 gravity-defying components at their workbenches.
