Audemars Piguet

In 1875, Jules Louis Audemars and Edward Auguste Piguet founded the Audemars Piguet manufacture in Le Brassus in the Vallée de Joux. To this day, the manufacture has remained in the hands of the founding families and independent, which makes it unique in today’s brand landscape. The maison is regarded as a master of highly complicated movements – from perpetual calendars and minute repeaters to tourbillons – and has shaped modern watchmaking like few others. In its early years, the manufacture produced complicated pocket watches, for which the heritage house won a medal at the 1889 Paris Exposition. During the 20th century, the maison developed wristwatches distinguished by their asymmetrical shapes, size or ultra-thinness (including the 1978 world record for the then-thinnest self-winding wristwatch with a perpetual calendar). A turning point came in 1972 with the launch of the Royal Oak, designed by Gérald Genta, the first luxury steel sports watch with an octagonal bezel and integrated bracelet. Its design broke radically with convention and made it a style icon, later expanded by the even sportier Royal Oak Offshore in 1993. Alongside the Royal Oak and Royal Oak Offshore collections, the portfolio of the Swiss brand is complemented by the Royal Oak Concept collection with experimental complications, the Code 11.59 collection introduced in 2019 with its three-part case construction, and the [RE]Master with reinterpretations of historical models. Today, Audemars Piguet combines traditional craftsmanship with avant-garde designs within a vertically integrated production concept and is among the most innovative names in haute horlogerie.