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AUDEMARS PIGUETUNVEILS ANEW 34 MM ROYAL OAKSELFWINDINGDRESSED IN BLACK CERAMICS
Swiss Haute Horlogerie manufacturer Audemars Piguet is delighted to unveil its first Royal Oak Selfwinding for the smaller wrists fully crafted in black ceramics.
The sleek aesthetics of this black model in 34 mm is enhanced with pink gold accents for a refined two-tone contrast. Timeless and versatile, the black hues will seamlessly complement the unique style of its wearer.
A SOPHISTICATED ARMOUR IN SHADES OF BLACK
Audemars Piguet’s summer collection finds inspiration in its variegated materials and colours. The latest 34 mm Royal Oak Selfwinding explores the creative possibility of black ceramics by combining advanced technology with time-honoured craftsmanship. The timepiece’s robust build hand finished to the nines offers inspiring contrasts and plays of light.
Black ceramics’ aesthetic beauty also lies in its technical complexity, each ceramic model requiring dedicated manufacturing and hand-finishing processes. Making its appearance in the 34 mmRoyal Oak Selfwinding collection, the composition and manufacturing of this unyielding material had to be adapted to the watch’s diminutive size, without compromising on the Royal Oak’s proportions, aesthetic codes and finishing techniques.
Zirconium Oxide (ZrO2) powder, mixed with dedicated binder content is transformed into ceramics through a complex industrial flow requiring different stages of high-precision machining. The exact composition of ceramics remains the secret of its manufacturers.
Pigments of colours are added to the powder before the manufacturing process, making it an integrant part of the material. The components achieve their final colour only once they have been sintered at more than 1400°C. Reaching a homogeneous colour across all components represents an additional challenge as pigments are extremely sensitive to temperature variations.
Each ceramic component is pre-polished and pre-satin-brushed, before being finished by hand with the Manufacture’s trademarked alternation of satin-brushing and polished chamfers. This light, yet ultra-resistant and scratchproof material protects the movement like an armour, while the detailed hand finishing embellishes the case and bracelet with an ever-changing play of light.
The depth and intensity of black ceramics is illuminated by scintillating pink gold accents. Eight hexagonal screws, exceptionally crafted in 18-carat pink gold, secure the bezel to the case, while bringing a subtle touch of colour. Each has been meticulously finished by hand.
UNDERSTATED ELEGANCE
The Royal Oak Selfwinding timepiece sports a black “Grande Tapisserie” dial highlighted with 18-carat pink gold hour-markers and hands to further the watch’s understated two-tone aesthetics.
Click, to see the large size. ▶ BIG FOTO The dial’s guilloché design — one of the Royal Oak’s trademarks—is achieved following an in-house know-how no longer taught in horology school. Little squares are carved out on the dial’s thin metal plate by an engraving machine dating back to the 1970s that reproduces the motif of a pattern. Small diamond shapes are simultaneously cut out in the thin grooves separating the squares in a seamless “weave” that creates a tapestry appearance. This process requires utmost dexterity and precision.
EFFORTLESSLY VERSATILE
The selfwinding movement, Calibre 5800, has been conceived for the Royal Oak’s 34 mm line unveiled last year and features 50 hours of power reserve and water resistance up to 50 metres deep. Part of its inner workings and dedicated pink gold oscillating weight are visible through the watch’s sapphire titanium caseback.
Keeping with tradition, the movement has been assembled and finished with “Côtes de Genève,” circular graining as well as satin- and sunray-brushing.
WHEN PIONEERING CERAMICS MEETS FASHION
The first external components honed from ceramics made their debut at Audemars Piguet in the late 1980s. Around 1986, the feminine Bamboo collection welcomed different models with two-tone bracelets often combining diamond-set gold with ceramic links in hues of red, white or black. The shade of the dial frequently matched the ceramic components, enhancing the timepiece’s two-tone design.
Black ceramics returned decades later, this time in a completely different style. In the early 2000s, new materials and alloys inspired by technical fields as diverse as aeronautics and automotive sports made their way into the watchmaking industry, the Royal Oak Offshore and Royal Oak Concept collections being perfect platforms to experiment with these high-tech materials. In 2006, the Manufacture released the Royal Oak Offshore Rubens Barrichello Chronograph II, the first Audemars Piguet watch to present a black ceramic bezel complemented with matching push-pieces and crown. This automotive-inspired timepiece heralded a new generation of sports watch boasting ceramic bezels in variegated shades, including white, blue and khaki. In 2009, Audemars Piguet released a 37 mm Royal Oak Offshore for the smaller wrists featuring a forged carbon® case, topped off with a black ceramic bezel set with diamonds for a more feminine touch.
In 2011, the Manufacture went a step further, presenting its first black ceramic case with the RoyalOak Offshore Arnold Schwarzenegger The Legacy Chronograph. With its 48 mm diameter, this extreme and ultra-resistant sports watch presented a bold, yet sophisticated style of its own.
Black ceramics took on a more refined look when it made its appearance in the Royal Oak collection in 2017 with the first all-black ceramic Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar in a case diameter of 41 mm. For the first time in the Manufacture’s history, the watch also presented a bracelet fully crafted in black ceramics, enhancing the collection’s silhouette and hand-finishing techniques. This model was complemented with a white ceramic version a year later. Other Royal Oak complications dressed in black ceramics followed, including the Royal Oak Tourbillon Chronograph Openworked (2018), the Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar Openworked (2019), the Royal Oak Tourbillon Extra-Thin (2019), as well the Royal Oak Double Balance Wheel Openworked (2020).
Today, the 34 mm Royal Oak Selfwinding in black ceramics paves the way for multifaceted mechanical timepieces conceived for the slenderest wrists, combining high-tech materials with timeless
“Born in Le Brassus, raised around the world.”
------------------------------------------------ TECHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS Model: Royal OakSelfwinding / 34 mm
MOVEMENT Selfwinding Calibre 5800 Total diameter 23.9 mm (10 ½ lignes) Total thickness 3.9 mm Number of jewels 29 Number of parts 186 Minimum guaranteed power reserve 50 h Frequency of balance wheel 4 Hz (28,800 vibrations/hour) FUNCTIONS Hours, minutes, centre seconds and date. CASE Black ceramic case Diameter 34mm Thickness:8.8 mm 18-carat pink gold screws Glareproofed sapphire crystal and titanium caseback Water-resistant to 50 m. DIAL Black dial with “Grande Tapisserie” pattern Pink gold applied hour-markers and Royal Oak hands with luminescent coating. BRACELET Black ceramic bracelet with AP folding clasp.
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Anton Suhanov, Russian independent watchmaker and creator, presents Racer Jumping HourGMT, his first wristwatch.
In 2016, Anton Suhanov
broke into the world of fine watchmaking when he completed his
ambitious project – the Black Clock tourbillon table clock. He embedded a
clockwork with an impressively large triple-axis tourbillon, totally
designed and produced by him. The target was set very high – nothing
like this clock had come out of the hands of a Russian watchmaker
before. Actually, Anton completed foundation timepiece of his
independent watchmaker’s venture, showing knowledge of the unwritten
canons of haute horlogerie and the ability to apply it in the work
process keeping in mind not only watch mechanics but also the design and
finishing.
The tourbillon should be considered as the king of
complications – this is an obligatory rule of working with it, which is
not always adhered to in the industry. For the Black Clock, Anton
Suhanov created the triple-axis tourbillon which may be regarded as the
most complex in design and execution, having made for it a harmonious
and airy-elegant spatial structure of three nested tourbillon carriages.
It looks like a response to the stunningly beautiful concept of the
harmony of heavenly spheres -– HarmoniaMundi, dreamed of by the great
philosophers of antiquity: Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle …
International community of independent watchmakers highly estimated the triple axis tourbillon Black Clock,
and it’s creator was declared in 2016 as a winner of Young Talent
Competition, founded by Académie Horlogère des Créateurs Indépendants
and supported by François-Paul Journe (F. P. Journe Invenit et Fecit).
Anton Suhanov is sure, when you are building the three-axis
tourbillons, watch mechanics itself accustoms you to see things from
different angles. The idea of a wristwatch, as is often happens, came to
him by chance. One day, driving his car to the workshop, Anton was
thinking … of course, about a watch, and that time about a watch created
on an automotive style. Now he recalls that the dominant point of view
that this kind of watch is almost necessarily a chronograph made him
speculate about it:
For a unique design, should be created a unique movement, Anton Suhanov is convinced of this. He decided to build a caliber with the indications based on the function of the retrograde indication of minutes. He invented the complex design. At the beginning of a new hour, the minute hand jumps from the 60-minute to the zero position, and this rapid movement, almost imperceptible to the eye, performs two actions: it switches the retrograde hour hand forward one hour, and then the hand remains motionless for an hour. And at the same moment the 24-hour digital second timezone indicator of Racer Jumping Hour GMT, installed in the window at 12 o'clock position, goes one hour ahead.
In the center of the dial, there is an unusual second’s indicator on a dynamic 20-second arc-shaped scale – this is one of the consequences of the master’s principle of leisurely perception of time, therefore, the second’s indication is set on the dial center, but does not dominate. At the bottom of the dial, there is a date window, a must for a watch that claims to be of everyday use.
“This method of indication expresses the essence and character of the perception of how time passes,” Anton Suhanov explains his choice of the types of indicators used by him in the Racer Jumping Hour GMT watch. “You will look at some watches once an hour or a couple of times a day, at others you want to look constantly, as if afraid to miss something important, some unique moment. The combination of dynamics and leisurely perception of time is my recipe! On my watch, time feels differently, at some point you seem to be in a race and appreciate every second, and at another moment, literally in a couple of seconds, you ride confidently, slowly counting miles, everything is under control, and the world passes in the windows of your car...”
Movement
For a unique design, should be created a unique movement, Anton Suhanov is convinced of this. He decided to build a caliber with the indications based on the function of the retrograde indication of minutes. He invented the complex design.
At the beginning of a new hour, the minute hand jumps from the 60-minute to the zero position, and this rapid movement, almost imperceptible to the eye, performs two actions: it switches the retrograde hour hand forward one hour, and then the hand remains motionless for an hour. And at the same moment the 24-hour digital second timezone indicator of Racer Jumping Hour GMT, installed in the window at 12 o'clock position, goes one hour ahead.
Finishing
In producing the parts of the module, the master was guided by the traditions of fine watchmaking, although the indication module remains hidden under an opaque dial – this choice is also recognized as one of the fundamentally important traditions of watchmaking.
The master treats every detail of the module with the utmost care, and, sparing no time on this work, he uses traditional techniques, including manual polishing of chamfers, engraving, polishing of recesses for screws, pins, and stones, spherical polishing of the shafts of the wheels and pins, perlage, fine straight, and circular grinding, sand-blasting, rhodium plating. The dial is finished using the anodizing, ruthenium coating, and guilloche.
CASE / DIAL
The dial of the Racer Jumping Hour GMT is unique, but so is the case. Its design is based on the principle of the regular Reuleaux polygon, this shape can be briefly described as a square with rounded sides. Anton Suhanov chose this form, believing that it best suits his idea of a dynamic, but the leisurely perception of time.
This shape hints at the aerodynamics, streamlined lines found in high-speed cars. Double screws for fixing the bezel, visually duplicated by paired screws for the pads of the axes of the retrograde hands and plates with inscriptions and a scale of seconds, give the design an almost obligatory technical character for car-inspiration watches, even more, reinforced by the double knurling on the crown and the whimsical shape of the conical holder of the button for switching second timezone indicator.
Inspiration
The idea, as is often happens, came by chance. One day, driving his car to the workshop, Anton was thinking ... of course, about a watch, and that time about a watch created on an automotive style. Now he recalls that the dominant point of view that this kind of watch is almost necessarily a chronograph made him speculate about it:
“I thought it would be interesting to imagine a watch free from this stereotype. The chronograph appears when we think about a car as a racing car: to move faster, to be in time, to overtake ... Looking from another side, a car is a story about a man behind the wheel, about a world that opens as anew in front, ahead of the windshield, a story about the pleasure you get from driving when there is no need to rush. This is a story about a leisurely perception, when the car gives pleasure by itself, and not from numbers that the speedometer needle reaches.”
As a result of these reflections, Anton Suhanov at one moment got an idea for the design of a new watch Racer Jumping Hour GMT: a glance at the dashboard of the car, where on the left is a tachometer, on the right is a speedometer, between them there are some additional indicators and numbers ... Everything is going as it should, everything is functioning properly, and all systems instantly react at the right time, responding to pressing the gas pedal: the car must remain a car.
And a watch must remain a watch – this is an unspoken agreement between the watchmaker and his clients, and therefore the master set himself the task of transforming such an attitude into a timekeeper, not only fascinating, entertaining, giving emotions, but also providing the information about the exact time.
Starting from the desire to create a one-of-a-kind fusion of horological
mechanics and emotions, Anton Suhanov step by step developed the
structure of the dial with prevailing on it two retrograde hour and
minute subdials. They are located on the left and right and slightly
shifted down – exactly for one position on the (imaginary) hour scale of
the dial, while the remaining central part of the dial is given away to
other pointers. It is this design that gives a unique feeling of
fleeting glance at the car dashboard – indeed, no one constantly looks
at the meters while driving, this is unreasonable and dangerous! Watch
has its advantage; nothing stops you from admiring the dial of a unique
layout and high-class finish.
This particular arrangement has historical
prototypes, one of them is the dial of the famous pocket watch “Marie
Antoinette”, life-long masterpiece of Abraham-Louis Breguet, with two
retrograde subdials of date and equation of time. Racer Jumping Hour GMT
shares with Breguet’s “Marie Antoinette” another common unobtrusive but
intriguingly interesting technical feature … you will discover that a
little bit later. ----------------------------------------------
TechnicalSpecifications
Collection: RACER Model: RACERJumping HourGMT by Anton Suhanov
Movemen Calibre Su100.20, self-winding; Diameter 31.5 mm, 6.9 mm thick (with indication module) The base caliber ETA 2824-2, modified by Anton Suhanov, decorative full-disc oscillating weight (rotor) Frequency 28’800 semi-oscillations per hour; 38-hour power reserve. Indication module: invented, developed and made by Anton Suhanov; 172 parts. Jewels: 43 (base calibre – 25 jewels; indication module – 18 Jewels).
Functions
triple retrograde indication invented by Anton Suhanov with retrograde
subdials for hours (at 8 o’clock), minutes (at 4 o’clock) and seconds on
20-seconds scale at the centre, jumping hour hand,
24 hours
GMT jumping digital indication (at 12 o’clock) with synchronous switch
of minutes, hours and GMT at the end of hour;
date window at 6 o’clock.
Case Stainless steel, 39 х 39mm, thickness 12.5 mm; sapphire crystal; transparent sapphire caseback; 30 m water-resistant. Dial 27 parts; the base, appliques and the bows of retrograde subdials – brass with ruthenium coating, guilloche, titanium retrograde subdials with blue anodization. Strap high-quality black leather strap with red contrast stitching; stainless steel buckle made by Anton Suhanov and designed as a sportscar spoiler.
