Some motifs change character depending on what carries them. The Royal Oak bracelet, with its tapering links and studs, has so far belonged to watchmaking. Audemars Piguet now entrusts it to jewellery. The Royal Oak jewellery collection, presented on 2 October 2026, developed by the Manufacture and co-designed by Nathalie Barzilay, takes this geometry literally: necklaces, cuffs and earrings keep the architecture of the bracelet and cover it with gemstones.
© Audemars Piguet
A watch bracelet turned jewellery motif
To understand the gesture, one has to go back to 1972. Gérald Genta designed a steel watch with a screwed octagonal bezel and a bracelet integrated into the case. Four years later, Jacqueline Dimier, the Manufacture's first in-house female designer, offered a feminine reading with finer proportions. In the 1990s, Emmanuel Gueit, then working alongside her, extended the vocabulary with the Royal Oak Offshore and a line of jewellery.
The satin finish and polished chamfers, all worked by hand, already made light play like the facets of a diamond. The collection embraces that kinship. The octagonal clasp, repeated on every piece in the metal of its setting (blackened titanium, blue titanium, white, pink or yellow gold), acts as its signature.
© Audemars Piguet
© Audemars Piguet
Risoud Eclipse: the forest under a darkened sky
The Vallée de Joux, in the Swiss Jura, serves as the common thread. The Risoud Eclipse line draws on the Risoud forest and on stargazing, for which the valley is known. The necklace and its matching cuff combine PVD-treated black titanium links and studs with sugarloaf-cut cabochon emeralds, surrounded by brilliant-cut diamonds.
The figures give the measure of the pieces: five emeralds totalling more 16 carats on the necklace, three totalling about 12 carats on the cuff. The conical cabochon, polished rather than faceted, returns a deep colour rather than sparkle. Against the dark titanium, it stands in for a celestial body. The alternation of satin finish and polished chamfers then picks up the light around each stone.
© Audemars Piguet
© Audemars Piguet
© Audemars Piguet
Dream of Joux: frozen lakes, night skies, floral motifs
Dream of Joux belongs to another register, that of colour and gem-setting. The line brings together one-of-a-kind cuffs in 18-carat white, yellow and pink gold, playing on deep blues, vivid greens, pinks and sunlit tones. The stones range from diamond to sapphire, from spessartite to tourmaline, from amethyst to tsavorite and topaz.
The tie necklace in blue titanium and white gold, with its matching drop earrings, evokes a winter landscape. They pair cascades of pear-cut diamonds (over 70 carats in total on the necklace) with links entirely covered by 1,670 blue sapphires in snow setting, in varying diameters. The earrings also exist in pink gold, with tsavorites and topazes, or with pink sapphires, tourmalines, amethysts and tanzanites. The Dream of Joux and Risoud Eclipse high jewellery creations are made to order, as unique pieces.
© Audemars Piguet
Frosted Gold: diamond dust
The third chapter is more discreet: chokers and cuffs in 18-carat Frosted Gold, in pink, white and yellow. The finish comes from an old Florentine technique. It was developed in 2016 with jewellery designer Carolina Bucci, for the 40th anniversary of the women's Royal Oak. The metal is hammered gently with a diamond-tipped tool, giving it the look of glittering dust. Mirror-polished studs and chamfers bring out the grain. The product description mentions no stones: the light comes from the material alone.
A jewellery history that predates the collection
The Manufacture is no newcomer to the subject. From the 19th century, it worked with leading jewellers, including Tiffany, Cartier, Oscar Heyman and Bvlgari, on pendant watches, brooches and rings. The "Tutti Frutti" watch, sold in 1929, bears the mark of that history, with its diamonds, emeralds, rubies and sapphires set by Egouvillon Lafon & Cie in Paris. In the 1980s, the craze for integrated-bracelet watches led Audemars Piguet to open its own jewellery workshop. The Baroque cuff watch, a one-of-a-kind piece in pink gold paved with diamonds and sapphires, dates from 2000. A collection of High Jewellery watches followed in 2013, with creations such as the Diamond Trilogy and the Sapphire Orbe.
For Ilaria Resta, CEO, the collection links past and future and continues an exploration of jewellery pursued alongside watchmaking, in order to renew the house's codes.
