Royal Oak - a pure design object (quick review inside)

Dears,
We all have a wish list for wristwatches; or better, we most likely have two: one for the pieces we wish and that we might buy, and one for the pieces we already know we will never own (even if - as James Bond says – never say never ).

I tend to believe that there is a path of personal growth on every field.
For instance, when I was younger I didn’t like beer at all. Then, after having been educated to the art of brewing, I started to appreciate beer (mostly artisanal) with a very open minded approach, removing any prejudice and being open to taste and evaluate objectively before to judge.

The same applies to my passion for watchmaking.
When I was a rookie in this field (well – for many aspects still I am) I was not able to fully catch the beauty and intrinsic harmony of shapes of some pieces, as well as the true technical value. With the time (and thanks to the Revolution experience) I started to became educated, changing my perspective and reviewing my opinions.
This allows me today to appreciate and understand timepieces once I disregarded (even if this doesn’t mean they are all matching my taste).

Coming back to the wish list ( I mean the one listing timepieces I might buy one day) there’s a watch that I did not valued that much for many years but recently – for the “growth reasons” explained so far – it is gaining positions constantly, reaching almost the top: it is the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak .

Unfortunately I never had the chance to have a live look at it closely; only quick flashes when the octagonal bezel was appearing from someone else sleeve.
So yesterday I went to the Audemars Piguet Boutique here in Milano, in Montenapoleone street.
I asked for the reference 15300, and the kind guy of the Boutique showed me both that reference (black dial) and the jumbo version white dial (in other words, the standard and the thin version).
The first surprise I had while handling the pieces was the lightness of both watches.
Despite the apparently massive case and bracelet, they both are light – and the jumbo version weights as a feather.
This difference in weight is due also to the different calibres and consequent different thickness. The Jumbo appears to be at least one-third thinner than the 15300.
(By the way, the Jumbo features the AP 2121 caliber (base upon JLC 920), while the 15300 features an all-in-house movement (the AP 3120)).
Handling the two watches and touching the steel the 15300 feels “richer” than the Jumbo. The feel of the steel (especially of the bracelet) of the Jumbo appears somehow “cheaper” instead.
I can’t explain it better, and by other hand it is probably just a personal feeling or maybe a matter of weight…You should try by yourself.
The overall finish on both pieces is very high level. The most impressive aspect of the case and bracelet finish is how perfectly clear the borders between satin and polished surfaces are.
The bezel – the most distinctive part of the RO – is really eye-catching. The dials are both clean and perfectly readable (the black one better than the white IMO). Unusual is the fact that the Jumbo does not feature a running second hand. Shadowing the dial with my hand, the lume is apparently quite poor for both.
Only little imperfection I noticed in the dial area (on 15300) is that on the joint point between the shappire crystal and the bezel the finish of the crystal is….Foggy – I ain’t got a better word for that. It is a matter of one or two millimetres, probably where the crystal surface changes angle to match the bezel (and maybe reflecting the light in a different way).

I turned the watches to have a look at the movements through the caseback (transparent in both cases).
Even there the level of finishing is extremely high, one of the best I’ve seen so far live (in my little experience being Panerai the best and cleaner – at least at naked eye).
The case connects to the bracelet (which is absolutely amazing in terms of wearability) with a 45 degrees angle (more or less…) which probably helps the bracelet to be so wearable. The clasp is a butterfly deployante which elegantly completely disappear when closed. The crown of the 15300 is a screw-down one, while the Jumbo’s is not. There is also a little difference in waterproofness (the first one 50m, the second 20m – a bit too little IMO).
Both watches sit very well on the wrist, but the overall impression is of a much bigger watch than the real size (diameter 39mm).
I believe this is due to the fact that the case is really wide (49 mm lug to lug) completely covering my wrist.

My personal bottom line on the RO after having seen it on the flesh is that it is a beautiful watch, a true timeless classic.
I believe that the secret of this is in the harmony of the the shapes of this object.
Differently from other timepieces I would state that the RO is a design object before being a wristwatch.

Ciao from Milano,
Slide68



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/14/2011 05:08AM by slide1968.

Thank you for the nice review of the classics.
I like 15300 pretty much but I hesitate to buy it.
Zdenek

. . . the Jumbo and the 15300. It's always a tough call for someone looking at their first AP though of course at least in the US, Jumbos are scarcer than hen's teeth right now, so if you want to get into a Royal Oak the 15300 might be the only choice you've got ;-) .

They're both beautiful watches in their own way; the 15300 has more of an overbuilt (in a good way) quality to it, I've always thought. I'm not sure if I'd say that the Royal Oak is a design object _before_ it's a wristwatch although I understand why you'd make that observation, certainly. Ideally I think a really successful watch design integrates the functional to the aesthetic aspects seamlessly, and the RO is one of the few watches I can think of that really does that almost perfectly (which is why, like the Nautiulus, it's a classic, I suppose.) It's certainly more overtly a design object than many of the watches that preceded it, and to see it in person is to understand that it's really a poem in the form of a watch to the aesthetics of stainless steel. It was designed as we all know in the early 1970s but the aesthetization of stainless steel goes much further back and I actually see the roots of the Royal Oak in the Deco period (and as a matter of fact, Gerald Genta himself said one of his biggest influences was the Art Deco era designer Raymond Loewy (whose career, of course, outlasted the Deco period by many years) who became famous in the 1930s for his S1 steam engine design for the Pennsylvania Railroad.) It's really about the elevation of an industrial performance material to the status of a luxury material for the purpose of creating a new kind of aesthetic, and if you think about it that really makes the RO the ancestor of all the modern high tech, F1/aerospace materials using watches such as those by Richard Mille. It's an interesting lineage to follow.

Jack

of the watch and that may sound silly, is the bracelet.
Bracelets like this, so comfortable are pretty rare.
Also from a visual point of view the bracelet is a superb design.
GEO

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. . . not to take anything away from the design overall (and peace to those who have the rose gold RO on a strap which is luscious) but the integration of bracelet and case as well as the very elaborate polishing and construction of the bracelet are a visual poem to stainless steel that's really the essence of the original inspiration. Just my two bits ;-).

Jack