BY HARLAN CHAPMAN-GREEN
One of the major brands not appearing at the incoming Watches & Wonders Geneva show is Audemars Piguet, which has changed its internal models to favour its own distribution and advertising networks. Of course, they’ve still got new releases coming out, and we’re looking at two of them now.
Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar “John Mayer” ref. 26574BC.OO.1220BC.02
The current generation of the Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar is one of the best-looking watches that Audemars Piguet currently makes. It’s sleek, modern and quite restrained despite the amount of information it displays.
This special edition for John Mayer features a “Crystal Sky” dial as its most identifying feature. Audemars Piguet says they used a lot of “high-tech” production methods to create this, including using electroformed components to embellish the dial with this unique look before PVD coating it to give it an attractive glimmer, like glass but deeper.
Inside the 41mm x 9.5mm 18k white gold case (with 20m water resistance) is the self-winding calibre AP 5134, which has a 2.75Hz beat rate and 40-hour power reserve. Audemars Piguet makes it in-house and is loosely based on the older 2120 movement, which, according to my sources, was made for Audemars Piguet by Jaeger-LeCoultre. They didn’t use it, but Audemars Piguet, Vacheron Constantin and Patek Philippe did, and a very refined version of it is in use here. This version is limited to 200 examples, price upon request.
Sand Gold Royal Oak Selfwinding Flying Tourbillon Openworked 41mm ref. 26735SG.OO.1320SG.01
The other watch on offer is an exciting new model, an automatic flying tourbillon watch that has been skeletonised, something Audemars Piguet is very familiar with. However, that’s not the main news. The big news is that Audemars Piguet has come up with a new proprietary blend of gold, and there’s no way they didn’t time this to coincide with the release of Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two, as the new alloy is called sand gold.
Designed to fall somewhere between white gold and pink gold, sand gold is a unique blend of gold, copper and palladium, which Audemars Piguet says is resistant to tarnishing and discolouration over time. This problem is unique to most red-coloured golds, and it’s why brands like Rolex and Hublot have come up with their own proprietary blends, those being Everose and King gold.
The sand gold case measures 41mm x 10.6mm and is 50m water resistant. The calibre AP 2972, based on the in-house-made AP 2950 calibre, is always on display. It runs at 3Hz and has a 65-hour power reserve. Unlike the model above, Audemars Piguet hasn’t mentioned that this is a limited edition model, but I wouldn’t expect them to be churning them out in a hurry. Like the model above, this one’s price is available upon request.
So, which of these two is your favourite? Will you be heading down to your local boutique to try them out for size? Let us know in the comments!
