If Audemars Piguet’s Royal Oak Offshore was one of the very first outsized watches to gain a following, you can thank some of the outsized characters who adopted it. We’re talking Arnold, Serena, Jay-Z, LeBron, Shaquille and a host of sporting hotshots who strapped on a watch deemed too daunting to be decent by classicists.

While today you’ll join a waiting list to get an Offshore onto your wrist, this was a watch that began life as an idea and had a stumbling start; there was uncertainty even at AP’s famed Le Brassus Swiss headquarters as to its very viability. The year was 1989 and a German dealer, Dierk Wettengel, had suggested a model for the 1990s inspired by offshore power boat racing. Wettengel saw an opportunity to cater to the young and rich aquatic set.