Audemars Piguet - 40 Years of an Evergreen
WORLDTEMPUS - 7 June 2012
The Paris stop of the traveling exhibition highlighting 40 years of Audemars Piguet's Royal Oak - the third after New York and Milan - opened yesterday in the Parisian museum for contemporary art to the tune of 800 invited guests. Chief Artistic Officer Octavio Garcia, who called the venue fitting as "an anti-museum," opined that the exhibition can be understood as an homage to Gerald Genta, the designer of the original 1972 Royal Oak.
The exhibition itself comprises 100 timepieces gathered from Audemars Piguet's own museum in Le Brassus and private collectors. One of the original 1,000 stainless steel pieces produced is naturally the first piece on display. "The dial has such extreme depth," Garcia remarked upon showing interested visitors the exhibit. "It looks almost like a 'wet' blue." The exhibition clearly shows that Audemars Piguet had a forward-thinking attitude toward materials early on: in addition to the stainless steel of the original timepiece (a shocking choice for a luxury watch that also turned out to bring a number of technical hurdles with it), there are pieces from as early as the 1980s crafted in titanium and even tantalum. A 1993 automatic two-tone piece stuck out as having a very different feel - and shape. The reason was because it was articulated by designer Jörg Hysek. In 1993, in-house designer Emmanuel Gueit created an offshoot for the celebrated trunk: the Royal Oak Offshore, a beefed-up execution that remains a popular alternative to the classic Royal Oak look to this day.
Personal family memories
The year was 1972. Unemployment in the U.S. was almost six percent, sports and rock stars were idolized in a burgeoning media, and Europe was very, very far away. In this era of uncertainty and luxury reserved only for a certain jet set, Audemars Piguet introduced an incredibly daring wristwatch: a move destined to change the history of this 137-year-old Swiss manufacture gave birth to a newly defined luxury sports watch.
Audemars Piguet is the oldest major watch company still in the hands of its founding families, though it does have shareholders. Chairwoman of the board is Jasmine Audemars, whose great-grandfather was one of the founders. When the Royal Oak was launched in 1972, she was a journalist in Geneva, editor-in-chief of "Le Journal de Geneve" and less connected with the company than now, though her father was involved in the factory's day-to-day at the time.
"I remember my father having a lot of worries to produce the Royal Oak," she remembers. "It was rather sophisticated and had never been done before. He was pulling his hair out at times!" She explained that many of the production problems experienced at the beginning of the 1970s occurred because what they were attempting was so novel.
"Gerald Genta was a real gentleman and an artist," she continues down memory lane. "He knew not only my father, but also my grandfather. The watch industry owes him a lot."
This exhibition, for which a backdrop of photography, art, sound and film from three 21st-century artists was created, will continue until June 10, after which it will travel to Singapore, Beijing and finally Dubai. Be sure to catch it - entry is free.
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