What happens when one of horology’s most notable designs moves away from the dial? For Audemars Piguet, the answer is haute joaillerie. This week, the watchmaker takes the Royal Oak beyond the wrist and into the realm of high jewellery for the first time. The brand has introduced a new Royal Oak Joaillerie collection and debuted it with three lines: Risoud Eclipse, Dream of Joux and Frosted Gold. Each draws inspiration from the brand’s heritage and beginnings in the Vallée de Joux, where it was founded in 1875.
The transition from timepieces to jewellery is not entirely new to Audemars Piguet. In the 1980s, when demand for gem-set watches was growing, the brand established its own jewellery workshop to enable itself to craft joaillerie timepieces in-house. This workshop proved fruitful, and the brand put out a host of high jewellery pieces in the 2000s; and unveiled in 2013 its first Haute Joaillerie watch collection.
This year, the watchmaker is sharpening its skills further, and turning its watchmaking expertise into jewellery artistry. It has used the Royal Oak as a canvas, extending its signature integrated bracelet into the centrepiece motif of this Joaillerie collection.
Dream of Joux translates the valley’s landscape into a series of cuffs in white, yellow and pink gold, mimicking the night sky, frosted lakes and everything in between. The Tree of Life cuff seems to capture the untamed nature of a tree where sprawling branches and green leaves are rendered in tsavorite garnets and cognac-colour sapphires. A dazzling tie necklace and a pair of drop earrings conjure a frosty winter. They’ve been designed with cascading pear-shape diamonds, and blue anodised titanium links snow-set with sapphires. The blue on blue palette suggests the fluid nature of water, sealed at last with a cool diamond water freezes into ice.
Risoud Eclipse, in contrast, turns its attention to the Risoud Forest where trees stretch for miles beneath a dark, wispy sky. Audemars Piguet is known to have a longstanding history with celestial observation, and this line references that through subtle diamond halos. The shadowed image of the forest is crafted into a majestic choker and matching cuff, distinguished by black titanium links accented with sugarloaf emeralds that shine like beacons of light.
Frosted Gold nods to the ever-changing glow of the Vallée de Joux, with the renowned Royal Oak integrated bracelet the star of the show. The line is expressed through a range of cuff bracelets in white, pink and yellow frosted gold. The name comes from the finish itself; an ancient Florentine technique in which a diamond-tipped tool textures the gold by hand dispersing the light across the watch evoking a shimmer effect.
This technique was introduced in 2016 when the maison collaborated with Italian jewellery designer Carolina Bucci, and has since become one of Audemars Piguet’s feminine signatures. One of the most popular modern Royal Oak watch lines, for instance, is the 23mm Mini model that debuted in 2024 in yellow, white and pink frosted gold.
At the age of 54, the Royal Oak is an icon of watchmaking. As Audemars Piguet ventures now into the realm of high jewellery, the brand has found a way to make its familiar elements—the integrated bracelet, the octagonal bezel, and frosted gold—feel fresh again like a breeze blowing through the Vallée de Joux.
