Audemars Piguet quietly dropped a new watch recently – and this one is pretty damn cool. And I’m not just talking about the white tones of the case, mind you. No, you’re looking at the new 34mm Royal Oak in white ceramic.
The brand has obviously had a few ceramic models on offer for a while, but the white models have always slowly followed the black. That’s because white ceramic is apparently harder – physically in strength and therefore technically – to manufacture than black.
AP doesn’t do half-measures here, so the case has to be satin-finished with brushed chamfers – difficult to do with a watch that’s nine times harder than steel.
The silvered Grande Tapisserie dial has pink gold applied hour-markers and Royal Oak hands with luminescent coating, just like the black version. The caseback is also pink gold, and through it, you can see the Calibre 5800 was designed specifically for the Royal Oak 34 mm, unveiled back in 2020. The watch is available today for $53,000.
What We Think
Ceramic watches from AP have been the “it” thing for a while now, but I never cease to be surprised at how much AP clients seem to love the white ceramic. Personally, it’s not my first pick from the brand – I would have rather a black ceramic perpetual over white when they made both, for instance. It’s a real statement and maybe one that I don’t understand. So I turned to our resident Style Editor Malaika Crawford, who better understands why these kinds of watches have such a following.
“Ceramic isn’t exactly a novelty these days. Hey, I wear a white ceramic Chanel J12 when I feel like being Paris Hilton or Lindsey Lohan circa 2004. And while there’s something about white ceramic that reminds me of 1st generation iPods and my college MacBook, on a watch, it does just look fresh. I once saw Bloody Osiris wearing a 41mm white ceramic perpetual calendar, and I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind ever since. At 34mm, perhaps this is the more democratic version of Bloody’s drippy QP. Aesthetically it’s far more audacious than the black or even the rainbow Bucci dial. But on the right person, it’s the perfect statement piece.”
So maybe it’s not just me that’s not the right person for this specific watch. But, aside from the blue ceramic perpetual calendar AP released last year, white ceramic is one of the rarest cases from AP and certainly has a high demand from collectors. Twenty-two watches in AP’s catalog use black ceramic (including the Code 11:59 with a ceramic midcase).
But there are only four white ceramic watches in the lineup – two are grand complications you’ll never see in person, and one is this year’s Only Watch release. The white ceramic perpetual calendar is no longer listed either. So this is the only potentially buyable watch in this case material, and it certainly will be hard to get.
I’d honestly wear a 34mm Royal Oak if it were the right combination of materials and dials. While this seems like the most obvious way to introduce the case material back into the lineup next to the 34mm black ceramic offering, I’d love to see AP do something like a white ceramic with a black or blue dial that leans into the punchiness of the case. If you’re already turning heads, why not go all out?
-Hodinkee
