Audemars Piguet Has a Wild New Watch. No, It’s Not a Royal Oak

The retro-futuristic [RE]MASTER02 looks like a Cybertruck on the wrist.

audemars piguet watch case seen from the side

Published May 31, 2024

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Updated May 31, 2024

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Audemars Piguet’s reputation should be unassailable. The Swiss luxury brand has 149 years worth of haute horlogerie cred to its name and, alongside Patek Philippe and Vacheron Constantin, ranks as one of watchmaking’s illustrious “Holy Trinity.”

And yet, seemingly everyone loves to bash it by claiming the brand is a one-trick pony. People complain that Audemars Piguet has focused too much on its best-known model, the Royal Oak, at the expense of expanding the rest of its catalog.

Well, AP has heard your complaints, loud and clear. Yesterday in Milan, the brand unleashed a flurry of new releases. Yes, many of them were Royal Oaks, but the piece drawing the most attention is a brand-new model that’s about as far from a Royal Oak as a watch can get.

Meet the Audemars Piguet [RE]MASTER02

Audemars Piguet watch — Asymmetrical and full of sharp angles, the [RE]MASTER02 looks like nothing else AP makes.

AP’s latest watch looks nothing like anything else in its current catalog, and that’s music to my ears. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Royal Oak and am even rather fond of the Code 11.59 line, but the more diversity there is in AP’s lineup, the better.

The new release is called the [RE]MASTER02, and it leans into some of the current trends we’ve been seeing in the watch industry this year. 2024 has been all about retro-futuristic and asymmetrical designs from the 1970s; often in gold.

The hottest watch among collectors for the past couple of years has arguably been the Cartier Crash. Piaget made a splash earlier this year with a modern version of its striated 1970s Polo. And just a few weeks ago, new brand Toledo & Chan turned heads with its debut ’70s brutalism-inspired B/1 watch.

Now it’s AP’s turn. The [RE]MASTER02 takes inspiration from an obscure and rare reference from the brand’s extensive back-catalog. Audemars Piguet Ref. 5159BA was a demure, asymmetrical yellow gold dress watch that the brand produced in very small numbers — they literally only made seven of them — in 1960.

a man looks at a box containing a vintage Audemars Piguet watch — The [RE]MASTER02 is based on a rare yellow-gold AP model from 1960, seen here.

The [RE]MASTER02 takes the basic design of the 5159BA but changes just about everything else (it’s much bigger at 41mm across, for one). Still, it’s the design that’s most notable here. The case is angular and aggressive, with the crown-side of the case jutting out from the rest as if trying to break free of its confines.

This, interestingly, also leads to an asymmetrical extension of the dial and even the crystal, with the latter cascading down at a sharp angle causing a visible “crease” in the sapphire glass. The effect is almost like a windshield on a wedge-shaped car. As the kids say, it’s giving Cybertruck.

Appearance aside, this is 100% an AP

The [RE]MASTER02 may not look like any other watch the brand has made in the last 60+ years, but make no mistake, this is an Audemars Piguet through and through.

Audemars Piguet watch movement — The watch’s in-house movement is fully visible behind a sapphire caseback.

The watch’s sharp-angled case is made from Sand Gold, a proprietary alloy of gold, copper and palladium that AP debuted on a Royal Oak Selfwinding Flying Tourbillon Openworked earlier this year.

Its movement is the fully in-house Calibre 7129, an extra-thin, time-only automatic that’s a no-date version of the Calibre 7121 found in some Royal Oak references.

Then there’s the dial, which may be the most impressive aspect of the [RE]MASTER02 and shows off AP’s next-level craftsmanship. It’s composed of twelve separate brass triangles, with each colored with the brand’s signature Bleu Nuit, Nuage 50 blue shade and individually brushed.

Audemars Piguet watch dial — The dial consists of twelve individual triangles separated by lines of gold.

The triangles are then placed on the dial plate and separated by strips of sand gold that stretch all the way to the edges of the dial and function as the hour markers. An applied Audemars Piguet wordmark at 3 o’clock rounds out the impressive dial work.

Pricing and Availability

You probably won’t be shocked to learn that AP isn’t churning out a million [RE]MASTER02 watches. The watch is a limited edition, though thankfully, more than seven will be produced.

The watch will be limited to 250 and priced at $47,200. That’s a chunk of change, to be sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised if VIPs have already secured every watch.

Might as well start the countdown timer now to see how long it takes before someone photographs John Mayer wearing one.