Birth Of The Offshore

The Royal Oak Offshore is one of the most famous collections in recent watchmaking history. Its birth has been recounted countless times, notably by Martin K. Wehrli, former director of the Audemars Piguet Museum. Writing in the Royal Oak anniversary book published in 2012, he  stated: “Contrary to its predecessor, the Royal Oak Offshore was not a response to any particular request or expectation expressed by any particular market.” It was thought to have been born from the commercial instincts of the then co-CEO, Stephen Urquhart (who signed Steve), which led him to entrust a young designer with the project of masculinising and rejuvenating the Royal Oak, which was about to celebrate its 20th anniversary.

However, while preparing this article, the Audemars Piguet Heritage team discovered a nugget that had remained in the archives for more than 30 years and which adds to our knowledge. It is an internal memo dated February 2, 1989. In it, Steve Urquhart explains: "In my discussions with Mr Wettengel, he got back to me regarding a leading piece for the 1990s, which he thought should be inspired by the whole 'cigarette/offshore' idea that is becoming increasingly important.”

First, let’s take a look at Dierk Wettengel. Already in charge of the German market for 20 years at the time, he was in a way the counterpart of the Italian Carlo de Marchi, who was one of the initiators of the first Royal Oak. Wettengel had indeed also participated in that initial development, since it was he who commissioned graphic designer Olaf Leu to create the Royal Oak logo in 1972. After managing the UHG (Uhren Handels Gesellschaft, SSIH group) company serving as the brand’s exclusive distributor in Germany since 1982, Dierk Wettengel founded the Audemars Piguet Uhren GmbH distribution firm that took over these prerogatives from 1991 to 2000, when an Audemars Piguet subsidiary was set up in the country. A great promoter of the 2120/2800 perpetual calendar wristwatches, he made Germany a key market for Audemars Piguet complications in the 1980s.

In his note dated February 2, 1989, Steve Urquhart refers to Dierk Wettengel's insistence on creating a "leading piece for the 1990s". But what was he referring to when he used the phrase “the whole 'cigarette /offshore' idea”?

In a very rare occurrence for Audemars Piguet, the story of the Offshore collection does not begin with a watch design or the invention of a watch function, but instead with the registration of a name.

In his memo, Steve Urquhart took a stand on this issue: "In my opinion, we should already see if the name 'offshore' is registered; and if not, proceed to do so ourselves, as it would be an extremely suitable name." Four days later, Audemars Piguet commissioned a specialised company to register the trademark, which it duly did on February 22, 1989.

At the time, there was no indication that the "Offshore" concept would be applied to the Royal Oak. The name was registered on its own and perhaps the idea was to create from scratch a collection endowed with sporty, super-powered and luxurious attributes.

Steve Urquhart knew exactly who to turn to when it came to revamping the Royal Oak, as a particularly gifted designer had joined Jacqueline Dimier in Audemars Piguet’s creative department two years previously.

Emmanuel Gueit was 22 at the time. A native of Geneva, he had been immersed in watch design since his earliest childhood. His father Jean-Claude was one of the greatest designers of his time, inventor of the rainbow setting and creator of the Polo collection by Piaget as well as the Riviera from Baume & Mercier. In an interview given in 2018, Emmanuel Gueit tells of having designed numerous watches while he was still a student, simply as a means of killing time during classes... One of his bracelets is even said to have been used in Audemars Piguet’s “Huitième“ collection.

In 1986, he met Audemars Piguet’s Managing Director Georges Golay to sell him some drawings, the idea being to fund a trip to England. The response was: "Go to England and we'll have a job waiting for you when you return.” He joined Audemars Piguet on June 1, 1987, a few months before the sudden death of the Managing Director, whose successor, Steve Urquhart, introduced him to the brand universe by taking him along to visit markets and meet clients.

The Design Department was located in Geneva at the time. Under the guidance of Jacqueline Dimier, with whom he formed a tandem, he was in constant contact with the Technical Department in Le Brassus and the prototype makers. He thereby discovered an extraordinary ‘playground’. In 2015, during an interview with the Heritage team in Le Brassus, he recalled that at the time there was neither a product manager nor a marketing department. "We did everything. We rushed around meeting suppliers, we went to choose the leather for the straps, we visited the dial makers.” In the wake of the quartz crisis, the horizons were limitless: "We were each designing two to three hundred timepieces a year... We came to Steve Urquhart with new ideas every month. He knew the markets very well. He would say: ‘This can become a collection, this would be for Asia in a limited series of ten, 20 or 50; we'll show the designs to Margulies…’ He was the one taking the decisions and there was incredible creativity in the air.”

In a 2016 interview with Le Point magazine, Emmanuel Gueit said: "When I was at Audemars Piguet, Steve Urquhart asked me to design the Royal Oak Offshore. He wanted to produce a masculine, assertive watch for young people. My idea was to make it large and thick. At the time, women were starting to buy more and more men's watches. I thought, ‘They're taking over our jewellery; we have to make something they can't wear.’ So I enlarged the Royal Oak, magnified the details and made it ultra-virile."

At the time, the largest Royal Oak for men was just 36 mm in diameter and 7.7 mm thick (Model 14700). Suddenly increasing it to 42 mm and 14.05 mm thick meant multiplying its volume by 2.5! You might as well wear a pocket watch on your wrist! Even Steve Urquhart is said to have exclaimed: "Wow, that's big!" when he saw the first sketches.

Since its founding in the 19th century, Audemars Piguet had made a habit of shaking up luxury watchmaking codes, but this was really going too far. How could a watchmaker so deeply rooted in tradition, nestled in a small mountain village, create a watch that was so excessive, outrageous, ostentatious and implausible? Interviewed in 2011, Jacqueline Dimier recalled that the watch scared certain brand stakeholders. While the 1972 Royal Oak had caused teeth-gnashing in the workshops, its descendant on steroids was met with a downright outcry. Spurred on by his fiery young designer, yet somewhat put off by internal feedback, Steve Urquhart wanted to believe in the project, yet felt torn.

In 2013, Emmanuel Gueit told WorldTempus:  "Every six months I was asked to stop it, but I was so convinced that I secretly kept on developing the concept." On September 19, 1991, he designed three new variations of the Royal Oak Offshore with metal bracelets, complemented in November by a variant with a leather strap. Finally, and perhaps despite himself, Steve Urquhart announced: "OK, we'll do it to make you happy".

Like all Audemars Piguet watches, the Royal Oak Offshore 25721 was treated to finishes reflecting the highest traditional watchmaking standards. Taking a few examples, each curved bracelet link was hand satin-brushed, the dial bore a guilloché Petite Tapisserie motif, the case alternated between satin-brushing and polishing, not to mention the movement decorations.... Its case was nonetheless designed to withstand intensive sports activities.

Model 15721 was one of the very few chronographs on the market offering water resistance to 100 metres. This performance was made possible by an oversized gasket, compressed between the bezel and the case middle for both aesthetic and functional reasons, and complemented by silver gaskets associated with the eight hexagonal screws running right through the case.

The first Royal Oak Offshore was also resistant to magnetic fields. The generous space inside the case enabled the addition of a soft iron cage to protect the movement. While the 1993 press release failed to mention this significant characteristic, a January 1994 report indicated that the watch was resistant to 300 Oe in terms of coerceive force, five times the ISO standard! The two chronograph push-pieces and the crown were protected by a Therban® coating, a type of rubber that is ultra-resistant to temperature, abrasion, steam and gas.

To symbolise sturdiness and evoke the new watch’s nautical inspiration, a special octagonal presentation box was created with a lid featuring a porthole enabling the watch to be seen even when the box was closed.

Power, virility, resistance, outrageous design: above and beyond the powerboats that first inspired the Royal Oak Offshore, it is tempting to see in Model 25721ST the watchmaking equivalent of the Hummer SUV in the world of cars.  It should be noted that the latter military-inspired all-terrain vehicle was created in 1992, meaning that the parallels drawn by some observers between the 1972 Royal Oak and the 1969 Range Rover could once again be applied to this watch-car tandem, albeit on an even large, more off-road scale…

The first 100 examples of Model 25721 bore a "Royal Oak" engraving on their back, without the "Offshore" indication. Some people secretly hoped the monster would get such an icy reception that the project would be nipped in the bud, thereby leaving the field free to use the ”offshore" idea in another context... However, the enthusiasm shown by the 1980s generation turned the tide in a different direction, and the model began bearing a full logo from number 100 (or 101) onwards.

Commercial success was nonetheless a long time coming, with only 61 of these watches sold in 1993, although admittedly the lengthy development process meant the first ones were not delivered until November 25... Sales for 1994 amounted to 330 units, followed by a total of 325 watches in 1995. All of which was nothing much to boast about, as over those three years only 716 Royal Oak Offshore 25721 had thus left Le Brassus, corresponding to 1.6% of Audemars Piguet’s overall watch sales. In comparing this figure with the 1,652 Royal Oak 5402 watches delivered between 1972 and 1974, one is tempted to speak of a flop. While production difficulties may explain these poor results, it is important to remember the extent to which this watch was ahead of its time and even more shocking than the first Royal Oak. In this respect, the pioneering spirit of certain markets must be commended.

Italy was once again the driving force. Franco Ziviani – who had been working for years with Alessandro Villa on watch distribution in the country (see the article on Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar watches) and shortly thereafter bought up the company – took Emmanuel Gueit with him on a tour of retailers. In Rome, when someone told him: “You're crazy, it's huge!", he retorted: “You'll see, when a guy at the wheel of his Ferrari sticks his arm out of the window, it'll make all the difference.” The argument hit home and over the first three years almost a quarter of these watches were sold in Italy, which indeed soon began suffering from a shortage of Offshore watches – to the point where an advertisement appealing for customers to be patient was published in March 1994! This Italian momentum increased from 1997 onwards, driven by the ski star Alberto Tomba. Little by little, Switzerland, the United States and then Germany followed Italy's lead.

These countries blazed the trail and the idea gradually made its way into people’s minds. While Model 25721 remained in the Audemars Piguet catalogue for 15 years, the progress in attitudes was also due to the expansion of the collection from 1996 onwards.

In the autumn of 1997, American superstar Arnold Schwarzenegger paid a visit to the watchmakers in Le Brassus. A young salesman by the name of François-Henry Bennahmias showed him around the brand's museum. The actor admired the pocket watches, of which he himself was a collector, but above all he sensed keen affinities with the Offshore spirit, having acquired his first such watch two years earlier in Vienna.

A few months later, it was the turn of the actor to welcome François-Henry Bennahmias to his Schatzi on Main restaurant in Santa Monica. The two men decided to create a watch together. On a corner of the table, they began sketching out the future Royal Oak Offshore End of Days, Model 25770SN. The ideas flowed: why not clothe it in black? A Kevlar® strap on velcro could symbolise sport and high technology! One thing was for sure: proceeds from sales of the watch were to help fund the Inner City Games Foundation – an association established in 12 American cities – offering underprivileged youth a range of sports and educational programmes.

To raise the profile of the operation, the decision was taken that Arnold Schwarzenegger would wear the watch in his upcoming film: a Hollywood blockbuster called End of Days. This thriller directed by Peter Hyams is about the end of the world in the year 2000. When released on November 24, 1999, the film was snubbed by critics and despite attracting something over two million spectators, its commercial success was rather mixed.

Paradoxically, End of Days heralded a new era for the Royal Oak Offshore by Audemars Piguet, notably marked by a number of Royal Oak Offshore limited editions such as the T3 (26029), All-Star (26158), Legacy (26378), etc., all of which were destined to support the actor and politician's charitable work.

The brand went on to establish multiple partnerships, exploring fields that were then far removed from the world of luxury, such as hip-hop music, basketball and pop culture. Meanwhile, François-Henry Bennahmias took over the management of the American market in 1999 and was to preside over the global destiny of the brand from 2012 onwards.

In many ways, the development of the first Royal Oak in 1972 appears to be inversely symmetrical to its 1993 Offshore descendant.

The former was named just a few months ahead of its launch, while the latter was born from a name registered before the first sketch. The former was an instant commercial success everywhere apart from Italy; while the latter began its history to very mixed reviews, except in Italy. A single sketch of the first Royal Oak was made on the first day of the 1970 Basel Fair; while numerous studies of the Offshore were made on the last day of the 1989 Basel Fair. And the list could go on…

They nonetheless share more similarities than differences.  Both were born from market demand. Both were nurtured by many contributors: designers, suppliers, watchmakers, etc. Both were regarded as enfants terribles when they were born and were interpreted during their early years in one model, one material, one dial and with one calibre.

Both created a new category of watches in the watchmaking world from scratch. The Royal Oak gave rise to the "sport-chic" category of luxury steel watches, while the Royal Oak Offshore paved the way for oversized luxury watches. Both drove classic watchmaking towards a certain worldview geared towards action, fun, casualness, pop culture, etc. Both shocked the watch industry but won over an international audience.

Both have become icons and their story is only just beginning.