Audemars Piguet; Maison des Fondateurs;

Coveted watch brand Audemars Piguet is at a pivotal moment in its history.

CODE 11.59 on ‘Havana’ leather strap.

The year was 1970. Times were desperate in the watch industry. Cheap quartz watches were engulfing the market and people were trading in mechanical timepieces for digital models in deals that would make the modern watch lover weep. There was a gathering sense that maybe, just maybe, that timeless heirloom ticking on many people’s wrists, and in people’s safety deposit boxes, was about to be swept into the dusty annals of museums and op-shop windows. To be replaced – oh, the indignity! – by cheap circuitry and a 1.5v silver oxide battery. 

In this fraught atmosphere, watch designer Gerald Genta received a brief at four o’clock in the afternoon from Audemars Piguet. It wanted a steel sports watch with a mechanical movement – not a battery-powered quartz watch – that would be waterproof. And they wanted it the next day. The brutal deadline was not the only challenging part the mission. 

Genta must have shaken his head in disbelief as he read on. This would also be the first steel watch to be marketed as a luxury watch, and it would be pitched at an exceedingly high price point. How high? The RRP would be 10 times that of an equivalent Rolex. In fact, the price positioning for this new watch would put it up against many gold Patek Philippe models. Talk about doubling down. 

Genta accepted the mission. He drew inspiration from a diver wearing an old-fashioned helmet attached to his suit by eight screws. He created a watch design that features an octagonal shape with eight screws on the bezel. It’s an enduring motif that remains on modern incarnations of the Royal Oak, including the Royal Oak Offshore, in 1993; the “Concept” in 2002; and the Royal Oak Offshore Diver, introduced in 2013. With a recognisable waffle, or tapisserie, dial, this a superbly faceted and finished model that, like the Rolex Submariner, is a timepiece that has launched a thousand imitations but none that are quite as charismatic as the original. 

Olivia Giutini.

It is only a matter of minutes into our interview that Audemars Piguet’s chief brand officer, Olivia Giuntini, mentions the year that the Royal Oak was released – 1972, to be precise. However, the context is critical. When talking about pivotal moments in the AP story, she has another date to add: 2019, the year Audemars Piguet released its hotly anticipated new collection, CODE 11.59.  

“Arriving just four months before CODE 11.59 was going to be launched was actually really interesting, because it really was the brink of an entirely new chapter for the brand,” Giuntini says. “So my arriving at this moment was huge. It’s probably the best moment to understand

the brand, to understand where we want to go and what we wanted to achieve with CODE 11.59.

“1972 and 2019. Both are historical years. We are at the start of this journey. For the moment, it’s a good one. Even if we’ve been crushed by a few journalists at the beginning of it.”

And herein the journey gets rather interesting. Because while the Royal Oak faced some commercial headwinds in its early years, it has gone on to join the Rolex Daytona and the Patek Philippe Nautilus in having a rarefied place among the most collectible and sought-after sports watch models in existence. And Audemars Piguet’s brand cachet is at an all-time high, with shortages of many core models common and aftermarket prices on some of them exponentially higher than the recommended retail price.

The CODE 11.59 is currently running to the same script as the Royal Oak. Well, the first part of it anyway, which is outrage at the moment of its release. “What I say to Francois-Henry [Bennahmias, CEO of Audemars Piguet] is that it’s normal to provoke reactions,” says Giuntini. “If nobody reacted, we failed. So the good news is that everybody reacted.”  

That’s putting it mildly. There has not been a watch in recent memory as savagely eviscerated on social media as the CODE 11.59, of which only 2000 models were produced in its first year of release. Why were people so harsh, so offended? “Because people love Royal Oak,” she says. “They love it, and people hate change. It’s also been a long time [since AP released an entirely new collection]. We launched the Royal Oak in ’72 and then we had the Offshore in 1993, then we had the Concept in 2002, but they were all from the same family. We are going for something really different with the CODE 11.59 and it’s not any kind of a scoop for me to tell you it won’t be the last [really different model]. We have more in the pipeline. Never standing still is in our DNA. Taking risks and moving things forward is an ethos we live by. We are also a ‘love brand’, which is why our clients are so passionate about everything we do.”

“I should also say that something interesting started to happen with the CODE 11.59 as time went on. After a few days, a few months, as the response from journalists died down watch lovers have begun to speak on our behalf to present the watch, which is a really, really good sign.

Royal Oak RD#2.

It’s true. Collectors are strident advocates for Audemars Piguet, which is considered a member of the Holy Trinity of luxury watch brands that also includes Patek Philippe and Vacheron Constantin. And AP is starting to recognise and integrate with them in innovative ways. One example is when it chose one of it most passionate fans on Instagram, the Shanghai-based collector @horoloupe, to essentially launch one of many highly feted recent Royal Oak releases, the amazing RD#2, which is the world’s thinnest automatic perpetual calendar watch. A perpetual calendar is clever enough to know which year is a leap year and will next need adjusting in 2100.  

The RD#2 is a truly mindboggling piece of kit. At just 6.3mm thick, it’s thinner than a Royal Oak Jumbo, and thinner even than a 33mm Royal Oak Ladies Quartz. When it was described to me by an AP watchmaker they used a simple and dramatic metaphor to characterise the technical challenges facing watchmakers tasked with reducing the thickness of a perpetual calendar, which has 256 components. “Imagine a six-storey apartment, with each floor full of the usual furniture. Now, remove five-storeys. You have one ground floor apartment, and we must still make all of the furniture fit. This is what we have achieved with the RD#2.” 

Collectors and aficionados are important, but Audemars Piguet, which in 2018 produced 40,000 watches netting revenue of around $1.6 billion, are aware that they must preach to more than just the converted in years to come: “One of the things that we need to achieve with Audemars Piguet is to have more and more people know about us, and know about the way we are,” Giuntini says. “For the moment I think the watch collectors know us, but we need to appeal to a wider audience who could listen to us not because they love or they geek about watches, but because they love our spirit.”

Giuntini, whose previous positions have included international marketing and communication director at Krug, is relatively new to the watchmaking industry and sees it with fresh eyes. Her last comment is more of a rebuke. She prefaces it with a warning: “I’m going to be tough.”

The question is simply, what does the industry need to do to stay relevant in a changing world? “I think the watchmaking industry is looking at itself, and that’s a pity,” she says. “We are living in the world where our clients are actually not choosing between two models or two brands of watches. They are choosing between art pieces, gold, cars and watches. The mission we have is to let more and more people know us. We think we have many things to say to the world around us, and not just about watchmaking. We want to let more and more people discover our village. That’s why we are creating a museum. So it’s really human. It’s beyond business.”

Audemars Piguet’s Maison des Fondateurs at Le Brassus in Switzerland, designed by architect Bjarke Ingels.

A fitting monument

Audemars Piguet’s soon-to-be-launched new museum is a triumph of modern architecture, built quite literally into the stunning surrounding natural environment of the Canton de Vaud, in Le Brassus, Switzerland. The Swiss watchmaker enlisted celebrated Dutch architectural firm Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) when it decided its impressive museum collection was due for an upgrade of its accommodation. The brief was to create a revamped building that would double as an exhibition space and a workshop for the watchmaking craftsmen.

Reflecting the history that Audemars Piguet has within the village of Le Brassus, the name of the new space references the pioneering horological work of the watchmaking firm. Maison des Fondateurs – Home of the Founders – has a space-age design using overlapping spirals that nestles into the surrounding structures of the Audemars Piguet manufacturing complex. The style of architecture could be said to have evolved from the original museum buildings, some of which date from the late 19th century, when Audemars Piguet was established. 

While this blend of historic and contemporary design can be jarring, it is a familiar balancing act that exists at the heart of Audemars Piguet’s watchmaking. Taking centuries-old techniques and combining them with the most modern materials and processes, the company has shaped its legacy by producing some of the finest watches the world has seen. One of the most impressive achievements of its latest collection, the CODE 11.59, is the curved crystal enwrapping the dial. The effect s one of light as a liquid form – it seems to bend and flow around the watch. 

This liquid dynamic is continued in the flowing shape of the Maison des Fondateurs. And just as the octagonal shape of the case middle of the CODE 11.59 is a nod to Audemars Piguet’s most successful design, the Royal Oak, the building pays its respect to the past by integrating directly into the landscape.