Audemars Piguet is so much more than its iconic Royal Oak

The number of truly historic watch brands that haven't been swallowed up by giant luxury goods corporations can be counted on the fingers of one hand - but among them is Audemars Piguet, one of the greatest of all heritage dial names The going has been far from easy since the firm was founded in 1875 by childhood friends Jules Louis Audemars and Edward Auguste Piguet, who began working together a few years earlier, just as the move towards mechanised production was taking off in Switzerland's Vallée de Joux.Although both were skilled watchmakers - Audemars had previously built movements, and Piguet was a "régleur" - the pair respectively looked after the production side and the sales side, an arrangement that helped the company thrive in the closing years of the 19th century as it created numerous prize-winning mechanisms and developed new markets in Europe and America through an expanding network of agents Less expensive sub-brands were introduced with the labels APCO and Audiguet, while the Audemars Piguet dial name was used on technically innovative creations such as a perpetual calendar model, the world's thinnest watch for women and, in 1970, the Calibre 2121, the world's slimmest self-winding movement with jumping date.

Having already been commissioned by Omega to re-imagine its Constellation collection, Genta received an emergency call from Audemars Piguet on the eve of the 1971 Baselworld Watch and Jewellery Show, requesting a design for "An unprecedented steel watch" - and a drawing suitable for showing to the brand's Italian distributor the following morning Initially a sales flop, the Royal Oak took off in 1974 after Fiat boss Gianni Agnelli was seen sporting one over the top of his shirt cuff - and now, 48 years and numerous iterations later, it remains Audemars Piguet's flagship model and the brand's strongest seller At the head of both the Foundation and the company overall is Jasmine Audemars, the great-granddaughter of founder Jules Louis Audemars - and she's no doubt looking forward to 2025, when she'll be able to celebrate the 150th anniversary of one the last surviving blue-chip, family-owned watch makers.

In what may have been an attempt to negate suggestions that the brand's reliance on the Royal Oak was making it seem like a one-trick pony, Audemars Piguet decided to wow the world with an all-new model in 2019 - and whipped the wraps off the 11.59 collection. . Source