Audemars Piguet launches new Royal Oak Frosted Gold in Florence
November 28, 2016: As the women’s Royal Oak celebrates its 40th anniversary, watchmaker Audemars Piguet unveiled the new Royal Oak Frosted Gold in Florence recently. A reinvention of an iconic design, this contemporary timepiece has been created in collaboration with Florentine jewellery designer, Carolina Bucci.
Audemars Piguet celebrated the unveiling with a gala dinner at Palazzo Vecchio in the presence of actress and brand ambassador Freida Pinto, jewellery designer Carolina Bucci and watch designer Jacqueline Dimier, who created the first Royal Oak for women in 1976.
The launch of the Royal Oak Frosted Gold enriches Audemars Piguet’s tradition of experimenting with jewellery techniques. Its defining feature is its shimmering sparkle, which comes from a surface treatment process rooted in an ancient gold hammering technique, also called the Florentine technique. Ms 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.
The main 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. It took months of trial and error between Ms 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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