“The Neo Frame is definitely inspired by our watches from the past, and it is the first time we have creaed this kind of watch with jumping hours,” said Audemars Piguet CEO Ilaria Resta when the 151-year-old brand introduced its novelties in a Swiss mountain resort.
The gold and black PVD-treated sapphire case features a closed dial with two small apertures, inspired by 1929-1930 Art Deco era pieces (Pre-model 1271) with hour and minute guichets, with counters, visible through minimal apertures.
“To really appreciate the movement of a jumping hour you must have the guichets and the opening, showing only what you want to show. The rest you hide by definition, and there is beauty in this extreme simplicity,” she continued about the complication that has been around since 1650.
In the 18th century, the jumping hour complication migrated from night clocks to pocket watches, and in the 1920s, it grew in popularity on wristwatches until the late 1930s when it faded. Space age designs brought it back in the 1960s and 1970s, and in the 1990s it had another comeback when Audemars Piguet applied it on minute repeaters.
The Neo Frame ties in with a current trend that we see from several brands, where the dial side is more or less hidden; Czapek Time Jumper, Louis Vuitton Convergence, Cartier Tank Guichet, to mention but a few. “I think there is a return to much more discretion and much more elegance,” commented Ms. Resta. “But we don’t follow trends that will come and go – we are here for a long time,” she continued.
The 1271 was directly inspired by the Streamline Moderne, a late branch of Art Deco, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2025. This style, which emerged in the United States engaged the aerodynamic forms of trains and ships, which were symbols of speed and modernity. With sleek lines combined with curved shapes, rounded angles and the use of modern materials, Streamline Moderne embodied Art Deco’s desire to combine modernity with craftmanship while emphasizing novel materials and a technological touch. If you take a look at the modern construction of gold and sapphire together with the rounded lines on the case-edge, alongside its complicated sapphire and gold dial, you realize that this historical description of an era has also been applied to the Neo Frame. This also goes for the caliber 7122 with a patented shock-absorbing system and an hour disc made of titanium.
The square case has not been around from Audemars Piguet for a while, but it does have a (forgotten) history of shaped watches. Square Guichet watches of yesteryear tended to be small and discreetly elegant. Neo Frame is extremely elegant, but it is large – the length of lug to lug is a whooping 47.1 millimeters, which makes it anything but discreet.
“It is a start, and this size serves the biggest percentage of clients. We will, if it works, evolve the case. But as you know you can never bank on a success, time will tell,” said Ilaria Resta.
