The Royal Oak was a groundbreaking model both for the Audemars Piguet brand and the watch industry as whole. The model’s strikingly unconventional design, with a hexagonal bezel, exposed screws, and integrated bracelet, turned the world of luxury watch design upside down. Although its unique, bold, and unusual design was polarizing at first, the Royal Oak was ultimately a hit. In fact, the Royal Oak has become Audemars Piguet’s flagship model.Audemars Piguet ranks among the exalted “grand trilogy” of Swiss high horology alongside Patek Philippe and Vacheron Constantin. The road to that reputation spans over 140 years of mastery in complications, artisanal finish, and production of iconic models. More than the home of the legendary Royal Oak, Royal Oak buy replica watches Offshore, and Renaud et Papi’s grand complications, Audemars Piguet is the largest Swiss watchmaking brand still owned and guided by members of the original founding families.In 1970, the world was groovy, and people were trading in classic mechanical watches for ones with light-up displays. Radical! Of course, things were less radical for Swiss watch brand Audemars Piguet, which was scrambling to figure out a counterpunch before the new quartz watches put it out of business. Executives threw a hail mary to Gerald Genta, a watch designer who was about to cement his status as a legend. An AP executive went to Genta with a brief one day at 4 p.m.: “Mr. Genta, I need a steel sports watch that has never been done before, I want it to be something totally new and waterproof,” he said, according to the designer. The subtext: come up with a watch that will save the company. Oh, and the design was due the next morning.That night, drawing inspiration from deep-sea diving helmets, Genta sketched and designed the stop-sign-shaped Royal Oak. It turned Audemars Piguet into one of the most successful watch brands in the world.Released in 1972, the Royal Oak was the first stainless steel watch replica audemars piguet marketed as a luxury piece. It was a different era: in the early 1970s, when men still needed to wear watches to keep track of the time, they chose between stainless steel watches and dressy pieces built for black-tie soirees. The Royal Oak bridged those two worlds, creating a luxury watch out of the more durable steel. When it was first released, the AP was more expensive than Patek Philippe pieces made out of gold and 10 times the cost of many steel Rolexes.People needed time to adjust to the idea of a new luxury-priced sport watch. It took three years for Audemars to sell 1,000 pieces—but, luckily, that first run went to the right people. Famously, the Shah of Iran was the first-ever Royal Oak customer. Audemars relied on powerful customers—influencers!—like the Shah to set the tone, and not long after that initial period of lackluster sales, interest shot way, way up. Now, the Royal Oak is Audemars’s flagship product.
