Audemars Piguet
SIHH 2018: Why AP Gave the Royal Oak Tourbillon Extra-Thin a New Tapisserie Dial
Actually, there have been even instances of Royal Oaks with dials completely without the tapisserie pattern, like the 1987 Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar, ref. 25654. There’ve also been quite a number of openworked dial Royal Oaks and, let’s not forget, the sapphire crystal dial on the Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar, ref. 25829.
It is interesting that of all the watches to have chosen to introduce this radical new take, on the classic Royal Oak dial, the manufacture chose the Extra-Thin Tourbillon, fitted with the 4.46mm thick, calibre 2924.
While the design of the watch made the tourbillion carriage the focus of the dial, with the gold or inlaid mother-of-pearl rays radiating from it, the tourbillon aperture, now a feature of almost every tourbillon watch sold, was not a design decision, rather it was an engineering one; if the dial had covered the tourbillon, the watch would have needed to be a millimeter or so thicker.
Allow us to, therefore, suggest that on Audemars Piguet’s part, the Tapisserie Evolutive was no mere design exercise. Rather, that it’s yet another nod to the Ra Automatic Tourbillon — specifically, it’s dial — interpreted using the signature motif of the Royal Oak.