“The third thing I look for is what’s inside. You learn as you collect, and as you learn you become more
detail-oriented — the little things give you more pleasure, and those little things can be found in the movements:
how parts are polished, how they’re finished, what kind of balance wheels are used, the hair springs, and so on. My
background is engineering, so it’s always been very interesting for me to find these things out. How did the
split-second chronograph work, for instance, or how does a minute repeater make all that noise?”
Shary’s first Audemars Piguet purchase, though, goes further than fulfilling his triumvirate of acquisition
priorities: it neatly epitomises an even nobler virtue that he sees as the maker’s USP — its refusal to sit on its
creative laurels. “How do you take such an elegant watch as the Royal Oak, with such a rich pedigree, and evolve it
into something more relevant and progressive?” Rahman asks. “The directive given to Emmanuel Gueit, AP’s designer at
that time, was to create a watch for the millennium, and that’s what he did, by incorporating all those interesting
new traits into the Royal Oak Offshore. It had these rubber gaskets on the side, rubber pushers, that very
industrial look, but also had a sort of raw elegance to it, which I really admired.”
This rampant progressiveness, Shary argues, goes back decades. “Who wore a luxury steel sports watch when they
introduced the Royal Oak? But they still went against the grain, and when there were few takers for it in the
beginning, they didn’t give up with it. Now it is one of the most coveted timepieces of all time. They keep on
challenging. They don’t rest on their laurels because something’s selling like hot cakes. They move on, they
progress and they take it to the next level. And that’s what I love about the brand.”
Another, more recent, saga demonstrating the company’s intrepid zeal, Shary says, begins at SIHH 2017, when Audemars
Piguet unveiled the Royal Oak perpetual calendar made from black ceramic — and thus rust-, rot- and scratch-proof,
heat-resistant, hypoallergenic and impervious to the ravages of water. “Ceramic watches weren’t unheard of before
that, but Audemars Piguet did it with a perpetual calendar, and made not only a full ceramic case but also a ceramic
version of a bracelet that until then had only been made in stainless steel, titanium or platinum. It’s one of the
best designed and most comfortable bracelets in the history of watch bracelets. It exudes elegance, but it’s also
very comfortable and very practical. It takes 600 hours for one to be made.”
Typically, Shary pointed out, this massive horological feat didn’t whet the house’s creative appetite. “They could
have just said, ‘We have a hit — let’s have a limited production, keep our friends and customers happy’... But what
did they do? Earlier this year they dropped another Royal Oak black ceramic perpetual calendar with an open-worked
dial. This one is a whole different level of craftsmanship. You can see the level of finishing and the thought that
has gone into producing the perpetual calendar movement.”
Rahman also counts the Jules Audemars series and the original Jumbo Royal Oak among his favourites, and is on the
hunt for models including the John Schaeffer Minute Repeater (“a T.V.-shaped wristwatch from the early nineties;
I’ve come close a couple of times at auction but haven’t bagged one yet”) and the Jules Audemars Equation of Time
(“What are you going to do with that complication in this day and age? It just doesn’t matter. It gives you that
little kick”).
So what would he like the brand’s future to hold? Pointing out that the Code 11:59 collection “offers watches with
some of the Royal Oak’s DNA embedded in them for future generations who are unused to the Royal Oak”, he adds: “What
would be great from a collecting point of view would be to see more watches that are blessed with DNA from the
brand’s rich archives combined with the expertise of Renaud and Papi, AP’s in-house movement manufacture, who make
some of the best movements there are.”
In short, Audemars Piguet have a tough act to follow — themselves — but Shary is not alone in sensing plenty of
classics to come from the Swiss house.
Read the full story with Shary in Issue 67 of The Rake -Subscribe here.
