Audemars Piguet has developed, in recent years, a groundbreaking tradition of experimenting with novel materials. For example, in 2007 they launched the Offshore Alinghi Team ref. 26062 which was made out of forged carbon, at the time a highly uncommon proposition (and daunting to produce).
One of the most recent - and arguably most attractive - watches that represent this trend is the present perpetual calendar Royal Oak in ceramic. Released in 2017, the watch was an immediate success (and was followed in 2019 by a white ceramic version with blue/white dial). One could write rivers of ink about the technical complexity of realizing not only a case but also - and maybe especially! - a ceramic bracelet, but such an intellectual debate would not do justice to the most obvious quality of the timepiece: its undiluted, nearly brutally powerful aesthetic impact. An ideal synthesis of the current trend in watchmaking - this is a piece devoted to its heritage but groundbreaking in its execution - it is no surprise that to date it is one of the most coveted, collectible and even wearable recent Royal Oak creations, a piece that would fit with equal ease the wrist of Bruce Wayne and that of Thomas Crown.