This Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Concept Watch Creates an Optical Illusion

The Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Concept Frosted Gold Flying Tourbillon features a disc of rotatable precious gems. A series of stepped blue gold-edged rings surround the disc, thereby creating an optical illusion. It appears like looking down at ripples in a pond or a well. And a frosted gold case encloses the entire thing.

AP teamed up with Carolina Bucci, a jewellery designer of Florentine, in 2016. And since its association, the watchmaker has hardly left any watch surface crystalline. Some of the brand’s most ground-breaking collections today sports Bucci’s micro-hammering technique as trademark shimmer.

The Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Concept series debuted in 2002 that showcased futuristic, experimental watchmaking. The head of complications at Audemars Piguet, Greubel Forsey, says –

“This was the beginning of 21st-century watchmaking as we know it today before all the experimental indies like Greubel Forsey and Richard Mille came along. The Concept created a new pathway that said high horology can enter the field of experimentation and avant-garde design.”

The 2008’s Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Concept Carbon collection served as the experimental platform for the watchmaker. The brand has examined materials science and worked to find the perfect way to track consecutive laps to awe Michael Schumacher, the Formula One world champion. Furthermore, with 2016’s Supersonnerie, AP played with correcting acoustics and sound. Keep reading to know more.

The Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Concept Frosted Gold Flying Tourbillon

AP introduced a diamond-coated Royal Oak Concept Flying Tourbillon in 2018, and it was the first Royal Oak Concept watch for women. However, the brand almost eliminated the bling and irregular openings in the latest Concept Flying Tourbillon version. Instead, AP emphasised the surface finish and texture.

Friedman explains it as –

“Celebration of the artistic, aesthetic nature and beauty of the tourbillon itself, over its technical attributes.”

AP tops the flying tourbillon with a rotatable disc of precious stones. It further features stepped blue rings with gold edging. Overall, it produces an effect similar to an optical illusion. However, the watch comes with a frosted gold case that packs the entire thing.

However, the frosted gold acted as a lightning rod for Audemars Piguet. They reimagined the most ancient materials in new, highly contemporary ways.

Interestingly, the Royal Oak Concept Frosted Gold Flying Tourbillon features an exclusive dial architecture highlighting the tourbillon. However, it is reminiscent of one of the brand’s most cherished contemporary watches – the Tourbillon Automatique of 1986. This watch is historically significant because it was the world’s first self-winding tourbillon watch and the first tourbillon to have a titanium cage. Moreover, the 1986’s Tourbillon Automatique was also the world’s thinnest self-winding tourbillon for a long time.

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