It is ironic (and sad), that literally a week or two after I visited the Audemars Piguet Watch Museum in Le Brassus, it was burglarized! Yup, flat out heist. The thieves scaled the sides of the building with a ladder, broke into a window and ran off across the border into France with some watches. I am not sure what they were able to run off with. The museum is designed such that the exhibits are each in highly secured “vault” style rooms. Meaning that if you break into one room, chances are that you aren’t gonna get into other rooms. I wonder what they were able to get. Some of those items are likely pictured here. Audemars Piguet and European police are clearly after the thieves, but a job like this requires a highly sophisticated client who wants the items for themselves. Not like you can sell one of a kind stolen watches on the open market. Everyone is gonna know they aren’t legitimately for sale.
While I truly hope the stolen pieces are recovered, some might not, and images like these that I took might be all that the public has to look at when interested in a brand’s rich history. Audemars Piguet is truly an historic brand, and the museum is located in the La Vallee du Joux where it all started. There are too many watches here to discuss individually. Many of them you’ll find in the gallery below.
Aside from beautiful historic pockets watches, the museum has a number of Royal Oaks, and highly complex Audemars Piguet timepieces. A few highlights for me are the very first Royal Oak (designed by renowned watch maker and designer Gerald Genta), that is seen above. Below it you’ll see an early dive style Royal Oak (looks like it predates the Offshore). The museum is literally a bastion for Royal Oak lovers – they have tons of them. It is actually amazing to see all the iterations of the Royal Oak. From the handsome, simple three-handed original – to models with grand complication movements in them.
Audemars Piguet really loved the art deco era. Lots of the pocket and wrist watches they have on display are from that era. Some of them are really gorgeous. The last image you’ll see here before the gallery is of a special satellite based watch that is the exact same style that URWERK now uses. Neither Audemars Piguet or URWERK invented the system, but you can see that while URWERK makes it feel ultra modern, it is a way of telling the time that has been around for a while. Lastly, don’t miss the Audemars Piguet watch made and finished by Philippe Dufour (images in the gallery). I also want to apologize the images not being the best possible. Lighting was not exactly “prime” for photography there.
If you are in Le Brassus and want to see the Audemars Piguet museum, I recommend it. Hopefully they will be able to “restore” the full collection in due time.
