Your coffee table could always use another stunning photo book, and what better addition to any watch enthusiast’s collection than a deep dive into one of the most iconic timepieces ever created?
“Audemars Piguet Royal Oak: From Iconoclast To Icon” nods to the 50th anniversary of the famed Audemars Piguet Royal Oak in impressive fashion, detailing the innovation behind developing the thinnest self-winding mechanical movement (at the time), and its celebrated icon status.
It’s also a coveted watch that was recently celebrated in a glitzy music video featuring DJ Khaled, Future and Lil Baby.
Assouline notes that the watch was an “outlier at birth,” but developed a following thanks to a younger generation that “recognized the watch’s audacious blend of technological advances and ancestral craftsmanship” at play within the watch itself.
At the time, the watch gave rise to new notions of an active-yet-casual lifestyle, Assouline notes, and the book likewise focuses on the watch’s broad cultural appeal, from fashion to music to architecture.
Today, the Royal Oak can be found on the wrists of icons like Serena Williams, Elle Macpherson and Mark Ronson, to name but a few Audemars Piguet fans.
Written by journalist and former British GQ Deputy Editor Bill Prince, the book retails for $250 and notably includes archival material from the watchmaker’s Heritage department tracing its rise and presence as a cultural artifact.
As Assouline also wisely notes, the “Royal Oak has been a canvas of innovation ever since” its launch five decades ago, and this volume should prove a fitting way to celebrate a covetable, legendary timepeice.
