Australian Watch Authority
One watch brand dominates the wrists of the LA Lakers, 2020 NBA champions
2020 has definitely been a chaotic year with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic worldwide. Blockbuster films have been delayed, major music festivals cancelled, but at least one American pastime managed to go on relatively unscathed – NBA Basketball. Twenty-two teams participated in the 2020 NBA season, held within a quarantined bubble that both players and staff had to remain inside of throughout the duration of the season. At the end of an exciting series, the Los Angeles Lakers took the championship…
The “inexplicable insanity” that underscores the story of the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak
It feels like decades since CNN came to our offices to shoot it, and by now I’d expect it to have run its course, but according to the fairly regular stream of photos of me on TV screens from friends, family, colleagues and strangers it’s still very much doing the rounds; a series of one-minute watch history vignettes called ‘Timeless’ on CNN. Considering I’m still home-locked in Melbourne, this is the only travelling I’ve been doing in 2020. I’ve been…
The Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Concept Flying Tourbillon GMT is about as avant-garde as Switzerland gets
Audemars Piguet’s Royal Oak Concept line can easily be not just confusing, but confounding when you first come across it. The case shape is so alien … who is it even made for? When the first Concept was released in 2002, it more resembled a piece of lab equipment from a sci-fi movie than a watch, which is a topic Andrew discussed with Michael Friedman, Head of Complications at Audemars Piguet, recently in a lively Zoom call. Over the last 18…
INTRODUCING: The Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Concept Frosted Gold Flying Tourbillon
Editor’s note: In the latest episode of Watch & Chill, we happen on the subject of Royal Oak Concept models for women, and after again seeing the footage of this extraordinary stepped dial sparkle machine, we had to give it its own post, and exploration. Ask the average person what the purpose of a watch is, and they’ll say: ‘to tell the time’. Well, in the upper echelon of luxury watchmaking, this hasn’t been true for a very long time.…
Audemars Piguet’s Michael Friedman and Eric Ku go deep on the history of the Royal Oak Concept while exploring two brand new releases
Lightning sometimes strikes [the same channel] twice. This time last week, we brought you one of the most scholarly and in-depth conversations I’ve ever been privy to in my time as a watch journalist, in the form of a video in our Watch & Chill series over on our YouTube channel. The main speakers were Michael Friedman, Head of Complications at Audemars Piguet, and collector and dealer extraordinaire Eric Ku. It was all about the way that Audemars Piguet views…