The Royal Oak, Audemars Piguet's angular 1972 watch icon, has jumped from the wrist to the neckline. The Swiss maison's new Royal Oak Joaillerie line reworks the watch's famous octagonal design into necklaces, cuffs, bracelets and earrings, set with diamonds, emeralds and coloured gemstones — no watch movement required.
What makes the collection interesting beyond the carats is where it comes from. Every piece nods to the Vallée de Joux, the remote Jura valley where Audemars Piguet has been based since its founding and where the brand runs its Musée Atelier, a spiral-shaped museum that has quietly become a pilgrimage stop for design and watch fans.
The line is split into three families. "Dream of Joux" is the colourful one, translating frozen lakes, night skies and alpine flowers into dense gem-set compositions that soften the Royal Oak's usual architecture. "Frosted Gold", developed with jewellery designer Carolina Bucci, uses an ancient Florentine hammering technique to give yellow, white and pink gold a shimmering, diamond-dust texture. And "Risoud Eclipse" goes dark: black titanium paired with emeralds and diamonds, echoing the Risoud Forest and the valley's history of stargazing. Standout piece? A necklace mixing blackened titanium and 18-carat white gold around five sugarloaf-cut emeralds.
CEO Ilaria Resta frames the move as a return rather than a departure — the company was producing jewellery watches and working with jewellery houses back in the 19th century. Still, this is the first time the Royal Oak's design codes have become standalone jewellery rather than gem-set watches.
Why should a traveller care? Because the story doubles as a pointer to one of Switzerland's most under-visited corners. The Vallée de Joux, an hour or so from Geneva and Lausanne, offers lake swimming in summer, cross-country skiing in winter and a genuinely working watchmaking culture you can visit, not just read about. The Musée Atelier in Le Brassus shows live craftspeople at work and houses historic pieces — a rewarding detour for anyone who likes their luxury with provenance attached.
