5 minute read
AUDEMARS PIGUET
DISCO BEAT
Sharmila Bertin
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“Music has charms to soothe the savage beast” states a popular proverb taken from the philosophical writings of Classical Greece, whilst colour is known to awaken, appease, electrify and play a role on our mood. Yet, both have a positive impact, occasionally even life-saving. Have you never felt tears welling up in your eyes as you listen to a piece of music that really touches you deep down? Have you never felt shivers running down your spine when you discover a gigantic reproduction of a work of art aerosolbombed on a building façade? Have you never felt the buzz when you glimpse a rainbow shimmering through the clouds after a summertime storm? For the most sensitive souls among us, our emotions are often guided by music and colour, their cheerful notes, their rhythm and their intensity. Variables to
be mastered, variables to discover in a watch. Time, music, colour. A poem taking shape. Like a fragrance floating in the air, carried along by the wind, a melody filled with a thousand hues sounds out from the heart of Le Brassus, in the Audemars Piguet manufacture, and flies off across the globe, celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of its legendary ambassador, the Royal Oak watch, imagined by the just as legendary Gérald Genta (1931-2011), and celebrating life in general. After these two and a half difficult years, this explosion of bold tones is but the perfect remedy to put a massive smile on our faces and a twinkle in our eyes. For this new partnership with the Joux Valley watchmaker, Carolina Bucci, the Florentine designer who specializes in jewellery, decided to forgo the ancestral
CAROLINA BUCCI’S TALENT BREATHES LIFE INTO A RAINBOW REFLECTING ON THE ROYAL OAK DIAL.
technique of hammering metal that infuses creations with a frosted effect, which has become her signature, but instead placed the focus on play on light. This Royal Oak limited edition, available in just 300 pieces, somewhat discreet at first glance with its totally black-dressed ceramic silhouette, tantalizes when its glints centre stage a contrasted palette of joyful shades. Flashback to disco years? A game of hide and seek with a fireworks display? A must-have dose of visual multivitamins? Our senses are sparked. “Bewitched”.
The dial of the Carolina Bucci-imagined piece comprises a brass disc topped with a sapphire plate. On this crystal, a host of little squares have been carved using microstructuring, laser mastery that produces the famous Tapisseriepattern checkerboard. And, beneath the crystal, metallizing breathes life into this graphical, technicolor result. The name Audemars Piguet is also featured in white lacquer on the sapphire. Reliefstyle indexes and large rose gold central hands set off with luminescent material adorn the ever-changing face of this Royal Oak. The hours, minutes and seconds are completed by a date nestling discreetly at 3 o’clock, and all is driven by the automatic 5800 calibre (50 hours of power reserve) housed in the 34 mm-diameter case. Eight hexagonalheaded rose gold screws, echoing the tone of the displays, ensure the famous collection-specific octagonal bezel remains firmly in place.
The following tune is, in actual fact, an entire album with its five tracks weaving
its way through a different beat, musicality and palette. We journey into the very heart of this melody as the dials of this quintet, created on the shores of the Orbe, the Jura river that flows into the Lac de Joux, reiterate the colourful stylistics of a recording studio equalizer. Here, the squares that make up the iconic Méga Tapisserie pattern of the Royal Oak Offshore, the ‘chunky’ version of the Royal Oak imagined by Emmanuel Gueit in 1993, take on hints of printed colours normally found on VU meters (aka Volume Unit meters), the device displaying the signal level in audio equipment, well-known to musicians and music lovers. They rise in columns from the bottom of the dial towards 12 o’clock and stop just below the white gold appliqué AP monogram, starting out with navy blue, moving through a range of electric tones and finishing off with bright red. The ensemble is hovered over by the rhythmic dance of the trio of hands – hours, minutes, seconds – coated with luminescent material, brought to life by the automatic 5909 (for the 37 mmdiameter models) or 4309 calibre (for the 43 mm ones). Cases are available in titanium or gemstone-set white gold for both sizes, and black ceramic for the 250-piece limited edition (43 mm).
In the Music Edition collection, the two precious versions propose a jewellery interpretation of the equalizer. As such, the dial and bezel are elegantly strewn with rubies, peridots, tsavorites, and blue, green and orange sapphires, i.e. 166 stones for the 37 mm and 230 for the 43 mm. This patchwork, inset in the metal using the invisible-setting technique, boasts gems that are Harmony-cut beforehand, a stone-cutting process that enables the various facets to catch the light whilst retaining their colour
THE DIALS OF THIS QUINTET REITERATE THE COLOURFUL GRAPHICS OF A RECORDING STUDIO EQUALIZER.
ON THE ROYAL OAK OFFSHORE, THE FAMOUS CHECKERBOARD ADORNS VIBRANTLYCOLOURED COLUMNS.
power. The ensemble is dazzling, resounding like a concert.
To exquisitely set off the Le Brassusbased watchmaker’s tribute to the realm of music, which it has been linked to for two decades now, certain details of this special Royal Oak Offshore series have been revamped: the elements that connect the lugs to the strap flaunt an embossed texture and now conjure up the notched surface of power jacks, and the crown-protecting bridges emulate the architecture of faders, these long control buttons scattered across mixing boards. The straps aren’t to be outdone either, as the watches boast interchangeable straps, fashioned in rubber, printed with a blue-hued mosaic for the 37 mm-diameter models and ribbed-style for the other references. Colourful music, musical colour: it’s up to us to discover our own philosophy.
