Royal Oak Frosted Gold

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Royal Oak Frosted Gold - Audemars Piguet
Audemars Piguet launches the new Royal Oak Frosted Gold for the 40th anniversary of the women’s design icon.

As the women’s Royal Oak celebrates its 40th anniversary, Audemars Piguet unveils the new Royal Oak Frosted Gold. A shining reinvention of an iconic design, this contemporary timepiece available in both white gold and pink gold has been created in collaboration with Florentine jewellery designer, Carolina Bucci.

The Le Brassus Manufacture honours the style and character of the female designers who have contributed to the Royal Oak legacy: from Jacqueline Dimier who reinterpreted Gérald Genta’s initial 1972 model and imagined the first Royal Oak for women in 1976, to Carolina Bucci today.

The defining feature of the Royal Oak Frosted Gold resides in its shimmering sparkle, which in turn comes from a surface treatment process rooted in an ancient gold hammering technique, also called the Florentine technique. Carolina Bucci has reinterpreted this technique in jewellery design today while Audemars Piguet’s experts developed it into a horological craft suited to the unique case and bracelet construction of the Royal Oak. By beating the gold with a diamond tipped tool, it creates tiny indentations on the surface that give a sparkle effect similar to that of precious stones, like diamond dust.

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The challenge for Audemars Piguet’s craftsmen was to apply this surface treatment technique across the case and bracelet of the watch without altering the clean lines that define the Royal Oak’s form. Then the original gradating bracelet construction also demanded that the order in which the rest of the finishing (polishing and satin finish) is executed be reconsidered. It took months of trial and error between Bucci’s Florentine craftsmen and Audemars Piguet’s manufacture to alter the surface of the gold in such a way that it sparkles when catching the light, while retaining the softness and flexibility of the Royal Oak’s bracelet.

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François-Henry Bennahmias