I didn't see this one coming: the Royal Oak is stepping away from the wrist.
Audemars Piguet has introduced Royal Oak Joaillerie, a new high-jewellery collection that takes some of the watchmaker’s most recognisable design codes and translates them into necklaces, cuffs, earrings and more.
The collection looks closely at the architecture that has defined the Royal Oak for decades. Its integrated bracelet becomes the starting point, with familiar tapering links, studs and octagonal shapes reconstructed as jewellery in their own right.
The move also continues a relationship between Audemars Piguet and jewellery that stretches back decades. Jacqueline Dimier reworked the Royal Oak for women in 1976, while the watchmaker established an in-house jewellery workshop during the 1980s before going on to explore increasingly elaborate Haute Joaillerie creations.
First up, Dream of Joux looks towards the natural surroundings of Audemars Piguet's home in the Vallée de Joux. White, yellow and pink 18-carat gold meet a huge spectrum of stones including diamonds, sapphires, tourmalines, amethysts, tsavorites, topazes and spessartites.
The Frozen Lake cuff uses icy blues to evoke the region's frozen waters, while Tree of Life and Edelweiss introduce much richer combinations of colour. Elsewhere, pear-shaped diamonds and snow-set blue sapphires come together across a tie necklace and matching drop earrings.
Risoud Eclipse trades the brightness of Dream of Joux for blackened titanium and white gold, drawing inspiration from the Risoud Forest caught beneath an eclipse. Large sugarloaf emeralds cut through the shadowy materials, surrounded by brilliant-cut diamonds that bring light back into the pieces.
Frosted Gold, the technique developed with jewellery designer Carolina Bucci in 2016, is applied across Royal Oak-inspired chokers and cuffs in white, pink and yellow gold. Created through a hammered finish, the surface catches the light with an effect resembling a layer of diamond dust.
Across all three expressions, the Royal Oak remains recognisable without actually being present. Its geometry has effectively been taken apart, enlarged and rebuilt, allowing one of watchmaking's most familiar silhouettes to find a completely new life.
