The extraordinary 50 years of Royal Oak
From 1972 to 2022, the Swiss watch industry has experienced a magical reversal from the trough of bankruptcy to the new high in the past 50 years. The two most critical factors: "stainless steel" and "luxury movement" are leading the Swiss watch industry. The secret to the phoenix revival. Going back to the source of the trend, at the Basel Watch Fair on April 15, 1972, Audemars Piguet launched the Royal Oak design, which is the origin of everything. This year, this classic luxury sports watch celebrates its 50th anniversary.
The beginning of the story was unremarkable: In 1970, Carlo de Marchi of Italian watch dealer Italomega asked Georges Golay, then president of Audemars Piguet, to order a steel watch that could be mass-produced "more in line with modern lifestyles" - it It should be sporty and stylish at the same time, suitable for various occasions such as work and personal networking. In the market environment at the time, this was a rather odd request. Shouldn’t Audemars Piguet make gold watches with different movements and different appearance details, even in batches of several hundred?
Fortunately, Georges Golay was not bound by established traditions, seriously considered this slightly outlandish order, and found a designer with personality, innovation and training – Gerald Genta, who was only 38 years old at the time. The designer, with a background as a jeweler, became known in the industry as the "Picasso of the watch industry" many years later.
According to Gerald Genta's later memories, Audemars Piguet President Golay called at 4 pm on April 10, 1970, hoping that he could design a steel luxury sports watch and give it to the Basel Watch Fair the next day. Customer review. Thus, in one night and one early morning, the groundbreaking classic of the Royal Oak was born.
Gerald Genta has captured the real creative spark almost from the start, inspired by the huge, bulky diving helmets he saw as a child that early professional divers wore, often fastened and sealed with eight massive screws of. 5 This concept has been transplanted into the watch design - the octagonal bezel, corresponding to the 8 screws on the bezel at each corner, with the slightly pillow-shaped case, - the subtlety of this design In addition to the extraordinary shape, 8 hexagonal screws penetrate from the bezel to the inside of the case, and are fixed from the bottom of the watch by 8 nuts and screws. At the same time, Genta also designed the industry's first metal strap with decreasing width for this watch - the width of each strap link from the lugs decreases one by one, which is very visually beautiful and makes it more comfortable to wear for a long time. Comfortable. Of course, there is still Audemars Piguet's exclusive Tappisserie plaid decorative dial that has continued to this day.
In short, the basic idea of the Royal Oak is a mechanical movement with excellent performance and precision inside the case that can run continuously all day long under the protection of an excellent and strong case structure. The highest level of craftsmanship from the inside to the outside makes this watch not only representative of sports, but also luxurious and elegant. It is an unprecedented innovation.
Today, the fans of the Royal Oak are talking about: On April 11, 1970, the first day of the Basel exhibition, Georges Golay first showed Carlo de Marchi the The design sketch of the hand of Genta, and has obtained a high degree of recognition. However, the subsequent road to official mass production is also quite tortuous, which can be called a legend.
After the design drawings were approved, Audemars Piguet set an output of 1,000 pieces for this new model, which was eventually named Royal Oak, which was a rare large order in the "top" Swiss watchmaking industry at the time. The problem is that seemingly simple details, such as the matte wire drawing and bevel polishing combination process of the bezel and the case, and the complex strap assembly, actually need to achieve the same highest level of craftsmanship as the gold watch, and not ordinary manufacturers can do it. of. Fortunately, with the high appeal of Audemars Piguet and the traditional friendly relationship with parts suppliers, these problems were successfully solved one by one.
After receiving an order from Audemars Piguet, the experienced proofing craftsmen of Favre & Perret, a famous case manufacturer in La Chaux-de-Fonds founded in 1865, said that they could not use steel to make samples of such a level of craftsmanship, but they could do it with white gold. - Therefore, the case of the first Royal Oak-like watch in the history of watchmaking was finally made of white gold, not stainless steel.
The production of the striking Tapisserie check dial was entrusted to Stern Frères, a specialist in high-end dials. As it happens, the factory has several unused guilloché engraving machines bought from its peers. Gerald Genta as a designer and Roland Tille, head of the design department of Stern Frères at the time, finally determined a check called T21 (Tapissierie 21) from 13 classic checks for the Royal Oak.
What finally appeared in front of people's eyes was the Petite Papisserie decoration of the first-generation Royal Oak dial - a decorative process consisting of hundreds of "pyramid"-shaped squares protruding from the bottom of the dial and horizontal stripes. , which can present a unique visual effect according to the difference of light and viewing angle, which is exquisite and full of details. The color of the dial uses a deposition process to create the tone of "Bleu Nuit Nuage 50" (night blue), and through the addition of a certain proportion of black pigments, the blue presents a deeper and more durable color.
Faced with the same problem, Gay Frères from Geneva, Rolex, Patek Philippe and many other famous professional watch strap manufacturers from high-end watch brands. A one-piece stainless steel strap of decreasing width for the Royal Oak, consisting of 34 link parts of different sizes, and 154 parts. Small components such as chain links, fasteners, fixed shafts, etc. of various sizes present many challenges to manufacturing. Until the Royal Oak was officially launched in 1972, in order to continuously improve its wearing comfort and overall durability, the product details continued to be optimized for many years.
The choice of the final movement is without any controversy and twists and turns - the Cal.2121 self-winding movement, which was introduced in 1970. This ultra-thin movement (3.05mm) is visually perfect when paired with a 39mm case. By the way, the famous ultra-thin automatic movement Cal.2121 is a variant of the Cal.2120 movement designed and produced by LeCoultre & Cie (ie Jaeger-LeCoultre) on the commission of Audemars Piguet and Vacheron Constantin. The latter only displays hours and minutes, the former The date display at 3 o'clock has been added. This automatic movement, which was only used by Audemars Piguet and Vacheron Constantin at the time, was known for its stable construction and outstanding precision. Audemars Piguet subsequently owned the exclusive production rights of this movement and has been using it in subsequent in the Royal Oak Jumbo models until 2021. It can be said that part of the prestigious achievement of the Royal Oak also comes from this classic movement.
From "Jumbo" to the family series
On April 15, 1972, the first Royal Oak 5402ST experience debuted.
In the eyes of the time, the "huge" size of 39mm gave it the nickname "Jumbo", which has continued to this day. It is particularly worth mentioning that its price reached 3,600 Swiss francs, which exceeded the price of gold watches of many top brands at the time, so the brand did not have any special grasp on the sales prospects of this new watch at the beginning.
rom today's point of view, its sporty avant-garde design style, excellent overall production process and high-performance movement, which are suitable for both formal wear and vigorous sports are "universal", which can be regarded as the creation of a new luxury sports watch. market segment pioneer. Audemars Piguet's selection of the earliest markets for it - Switzerland and Italy - was also the result of careful deliberation. The former is the base of the brand, the latter is the earliest orderer, has a great passion for watches, and its aesthetics often lead the world trend.
Those familiar with the history of watchmaking should know that the debut of the Royal Oak comes at a critical turning point in the global popularity of cheap Japanese-made watches. As a traditional watchmaking company, Audemars Piguet is under no small pressure; therefore, it is very realistic to adopt a steadily advancing market strategy. From 1972 to 1976, the Royal Oak only had the 5402ST style, and all the details of the material, dial color, and movement remained unchanged: after the first batch of 1,000 pieces (the A prefix sought after by collectors) were sold out, more than 1,000 more were produced. 5,000 pieces (including B, C, D prefixes). Buyers in European countries such as Germany and France have begun to notice it, and the United States and Asian countries have followed suit.
For Audemars Piguet, this is the first watch produced by the brand in excess of 1,000 pieces, and the first model to be truly named - the Royal Oak, which, as the name suggests, comes from a tree, or more precisely, a tree. An English oak tree.
On September 3, 1651, King Charles II was defeated in the battle of Chester and fled alone. Passing through a hillside, in front of it is a flat river, and behind it is the chasing soldiers. In desperation, he found a hollow old oak tree, so he hid in the tree. After escaping the pursuit, Charles II made a comeback, turned defeat into victory, and recalled the troubled past. This old oak was also named "Royal Oak". 16 The Royal Oak has since become the mascot and god of war of the British army. Since then, four Royal Navy ships have been named after the Royal Oak.
The most famous one, launched in 1862, was named HMS Royal Oak. Its hull is mainly made of oak, with octagonal portholes in the cabin, and on the outside of the windows, there are octagonal frames fixed with screws. This saga makes it easier for Audemars Piguet to promote this new luxury sports watch.
The next turning point came in 1976, when Ms. Jacqueline Dimier, head of Audemars Piguet's product design department, launched the 8638ST with a diameter of 29 mm on the basis of the original design, called "Royal Oak II". This model is equipped with a self-winding movement Cal.2062, with a simple hour and minute display function. It was a huge success in sales: in the four years from 1976 to 1980, more than 3,800 8638STs were produced. Since then, Royal Oak has also officially developed into a product series. Watches with different materials, functions and designs have been launched one after another, meeting different needs and aesthetics, but also leading the market trend of the entire luxury sports watch: since the 1980s, including precious metals, two-color watches (Steel and gold) case styles, as well as models with different functions came out one after another. From 1978 to 1979, 5402SA and 8638SA came out one after another, which brought great changes to the Royal Oak: the case steel was matched with 18K gold, the gold hour markers and AP logo on the dial perfectly matched the gold bezel, and the Tapisserie dial was turned dark grey. Among them, the date plate of 5402SA uses black numerals and a gold chassis, which is especially harmonious with the color matching of the whole watch.
As a direct consequence of the global popularity of Royal Oak in the 1980s, the top brands in the industry all gave up the strategy of only producing gold watches, and tried their best to add an all-steel style to their product line to attract the attention of a new generation of buyers.
Fifty years into the future
Since the 1980s, Audemars Piguet has applied its rich watchmaking experience to the Royal Oak, so that the brand's iconic product series has a constant appearance, and has derived a variety of functions, from moon phase, timing to perpetual calendar. , Tourbillon. Three questions, etc. Under the modern and trendy appearance, it covers the essence of Audemars Piguet's century-old watchmaking. Taking the three most popular complex functions as an example, the Ref.5554ST launched in 1984 has a perpetual calendar function, the Ref.25831OR launched in 1997 applied the tourbillon structure, and the Ref.25865BC large complex function table launched in the same year. It is a collection of three complex functions of split-seconds chronograph, perpetual calendar and three questions, which can be called the pinnacle of luxury sports watches.
Standing on the top of the 50th anniversary and looking forward to the next 50 years, Audemars Piguet chose a new generation of Jumbo16202 that is almost authentic. case, to the octagonal bezel with 8 hexagonal screws, the one-piece metal strap of decreasing width and the beautiful Tappisserie check dial. Under the exquisite appearance, the inner core is very different - the legendary movement Cal.2121, which was launched in 1967 and has been driving Jumbo from 1972 to 2021, was developed by the Cal. Replaced by the 7121 automatic movement. The volume of the barrel of the new movement is 2.6 times that of the Cal.2121, the bidirectional winding makes it more efficient, and its power reserve exceeds 55 hours. The vibration frequency of 4 Hz makes its operation more stable, which also means higher travel time accuracy. In addition, a series of improvements include the instantaneous jump of the calendar and the protection mechanism of the movement during time adjustment.
Different from the single stainless steel model of the first-generation Jumbo, the new Jumbo 16202 has 4 styles. The stainless steel uses the same "night blue" dial as the 5402ST, and the rose gold and gold models both use a smoky gradient small check dial. The 950 platinum model uses a gradient green radial pattern dial without plaid decoration.
At the same time as the new generation of Jumbo16202 was launched, Audemars Piguet also launched a package of 41mm chronograph, 37mm automatic winding and other styles. The return of the blue plaid dial gives these watches a clear Royal Oak classic look. After careful analysis, the details of the case and strap have been adjusted a lot, the purpose of which is to improve the overall wearing comfort. The 41mm, 39mm, 37mm and 34mm models are equipped with their own "exclusive" Audemars Piguet movements Cal.4302, Cal.7121, Cal.5900 and Cal.5800, in addition to the perfect size of the case In addition to matching, it has also significantly improved in terms of power and accuracy. Taken together, these next-generation products mean Royal Oak is entering the next century strongly.
On May 6, Phillips auction house held a Royal Oak 50th anniversary theme auction in Geneva. 88 watches were repeatedly "competed" for more than 4 hours, which once again confirmed the popularity of Royal Oak. degree. Among them, a very historic and well-preserved Royal Oak from 1972 (case number A2) with a box and certificate of origin was finally sold for 1,058,500 Swiss francs including commission, setting a new auction record for a Royal Oak.
