As it celebrates its 150th anniversary, Audemars Piguet has just announced one of the most significant innovations in the world of watch complications: a new generation of self-winding, perpetual calendar movement. Named the Calibre 7138, it allows for the first time access to all the functionality of a perpetual calendar watch through an all-in-one crown.
A perpetual calendar watch – also referred to in watch circles as QP, from the initials for the French term quantieme perpetuel – is a mechanical timepiece that tracks and displays an array of calendar information on its dial. This typically includes the day of the week, date of the month, leap years and moon phases.
They are some of the most complicated pieces in horology, making them also some of the most expensive. In these new watches from Audemars Piguet, the perpetual calendar, which mechanically reproduces the movement of celestial bodies, has been entirely rethought.
“Astronomy is the mother of watchmaking,” says Sebastian Vivas, heritage and museum director for Audemars Piguet. “Calendar watches have evolved over time to capture the cycles of celestial bodies with a combination of small cams and gears. Among them, the perpetual calendar, one of the most complex in this category, is like a small mechanical computer on the wrist, capable of keeping the date correct for an entire century.”
The brand has some pedigree in this area of watchmaking, creating what are referred to as complicated movements since its founding in Le Brassus, Switzerland, in 1875.
The new movement makes its debut on a 41mm Code 11.59 in 18-carat white gold, and on two 41mm Royal Oak models in stainless steel or 18-carat sand gold. Those models are also being offered in anniversary editions limited to 150 pieces each.
While at first glance the anniversary versions may look similar to the other pieces being released, they carry a few subtle design cues that mark them apart. Most notably, besides being numbered, they carry a vintage Audemars Piguet signature inspired by archival documents. These are particularly striking on the Royal Oak variations, as the cursive heritage logo contrasts nicely with the legendary model’s 1970s octagonal aesthetics.
To the uninitiated, it might seem that making control of a few dials through a single crown on the side of a watch is a simple enough task. They would be wrong. The development process took five years to perfect and is protected by five patents.
Traditional perpetual calendar watches are usually equipped with correctors inserted in the side of the case, which are activated by using a small tool to adjust the various subdials. This is an age-old system that is pretty cumbersome and fiddly. Watch owners have been known to damage their timepieces by trying to make these adjustments. Most end up taking them to their nearest dealership for maintenance.
When the announcement was made on stage in the media preview that all the dials would now be adjustable from a single crown, excited celebratory noises rippled in the auditorium. The watch press – and watch collectors – take things like this very seriously.
The new crown incorporates four different positions. The first enables the wearer to wind the watch clockwise. Pulling the crown out one step further allows you to set the date clockwise and to adjust the month and the leap year in the opposite direction. By pulling the crown out again to a third position, the user can set the time bidirectionally. The last position is reached by pushing the crown back one step to set the day and week clockwise and the moon phases counter-clockwise. Again, it sounds simple, but it took five years for the best minds in horology to figure out the mechanism.
In 1978, at the height of the quartz crisis, the brand broke a record with the world’s thinnest self-winding, perpetual calendar wristwatch of its time, Calibre 2120/2800. Quartz threatened the very survival of watchmaking, as it eliminated the need for complicated mechanics. Hundreds of watchmakers packed up their tools for good during this era in the area surrounding Le Brassus.
But Audemars Piguet endured, insisting on making its watches even more mechanical and more complicated. It is easy to think that mechanical watches serve no purpose – after all you can just stare at your phone for an accurate time – but they undeniably serve a deeper meaning.
To witness the launch of these watches and be walked through the intricate mechanisms that make up their components, we were invited to spend two nights in the Vallee de Joux. We spent them at Audemars Piguet’s own hotel, Hotel des Horlogers, which is alongside its museum and a few steps away from its new factory. Going out for an evening stroll and looking up at the sky, you get a sense of why generation after generation of watchmakers in this area became fascinated with the movement of celestial bodies.
On a clear night as you look up you can see what seems like every star in the universe. Living out here 150 years ago, the thought of taming that sky and the eternity it represents through the intricate mechanisms of a watch must have been too much to resist.
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