Dr. N.
One of the most successful creations of the great watch designer Gerald genta it is certainly theAudemars Piguet Royal Oak. This watch has a significant impact on the watchmaking of the seventies: in addition to saving from bankruptcy Audemars Piguet, lays the foundation for a whole new category of watches, luxury sports watches.
Audemars Piguet Royal Oak: the origins
In the XNUMXs, the Swiss watch industry was in serious difficulty. Young but aggressive Japanese manufacturers have taken the market by storm with new quartz watches. These are cheaper, sturdier and more accurate than mechanical watches, as well as requiring almost no maintenance, apart from changing the battery. Many glorious Swiss watch brands, once authors of important innovations, are closing or are being significantly downsized. Also Audemars Piguet, like other luxury Swiss watch brands, is suffering from the so-called “quartz crisis”.
On an afternoon in 1971, on the eve of the Basel Fair, Georges Golay, director of Audemars Piguet, calls Gerald Genta, the best-known watch designer of the time. Golay explains to Genta that the Italian watch market (at the time, the second after the US one) requires an "unprecedented" watch, a sports one also suitable for elegant occasions. The watch must be made of steel, and must have a high standard finish.
The morning of the following day, Gerald Genta presents the design for 's new elegant sports watch Audemars Piguet. Royal Oak has taken shape.
Gerald Genta's original design for the Royal Oak
Royal Oak: the style
The octagonal ring of the Royal Oak It is inspired, in shape, by the helmet visor of an underwater diving suit. One of the innovations that Gerald Genta proposes with this design is the idea of showing how the watch is built, rather than hiding its technical details. For this purpose, he decides to insert visible screws on the octagonal ring.
The bracelet, also in steel, is integrated with the case and reflects the light in order to enhance the construction, made up of shiny links that interact with the satin ones.
Audemars Piguet Royal Oak: watch technology
The Royal Oak has a large diameter, a record for its time, even if today it appears average: thirty-nine millimeters. However, the thickness is extremely reduced, just seven millimetres, thanks to an ultra-thin automatic movement developed shortly before by a consortium of the best Swiss watchmaking companies: Patek Philippe, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Audemars Piguet and Vacheron Constantin.
Audemars Piguet is on the verge of bankruptcy when he presents the Royal Oak at the Basel fair in 1972. The particular style of the watch, and the material chosen to make it - steel - require processing with specific and expensive machinery. Audemars cannot afford those machines: for this reason it chooses to present the first prototypes, rather than in steel, in white gold. It is a much softer and easier to work metal, which allows the first examples to be created with the tools already present in the company. One of the very rare Royal Oak in white gold created in this phase is then worn on an illustrious wrist: that of the Shah of Persia Rehza Palawi, a great collector of luxury watches.
Royal Oak: success
Il Royal Oak takes its name from a class of eight ships in the British Navy, a reference to the eight segments that make up the ring. The high launch price, especially for a steel watch, and the breaking aesthetics, lead many to think that the Royal Oak will bring the already shaky Audemars Piguet to failure. The public instead appreciates Gerald Genta's bold style, and rewards the Royal Oak with large sales numbers, which will save the manufacturing company from bankruptcy.
Gerald genta's two greatest creations, the Royal Oak di Audemars Piguet and Nautilus di Patek Philippe, show Swiss watchmaking the way out of the quartz crisis. Attention to detail, quality of workmanship, attention to aesthetics and the search for daring technical solutions are the way to convince enthusiasts to invest in themechanical watch, preferring it to the cheaper, but less glamorous, quartz alternative.
