When the quartz crisis of the 1970s left many watchmakers in the lurch, Audemars and Piguet found a creative solution, tapping the Geneva-born Gérald Genta to conceive the first-ever luxury watch in stainless steel. It retained an ever-evolving technical focus and found new praise for its efforts, producing the world’s thinnest pocket-watch caliber in 1925, the first skeletonized pocket watch in 1934 and the world’s thinnest wristwatch in 1946. Under the leadership of Paul Louis Audemars and Paul Edward Piguet, the watchmaker continued to innovate. It is still said to be the most complicated timepiece that Audemars Piguet has ever designed.īetween 19, both founders of Audemars Piguet had died and were replaced by their respective sons, incidentally both named Paul. (It was sold to Omega, whose origins date to 1848.) That was soon followed in 1899 with the Universelle pocket watch, a masterpiece of horology that boasted a perpetual calendar, minute repeater, alarm and chronograph with jumping seconds. With complementary specialties within the field, Audemars and Piguet made the perfect pair in 1875: Audemars, the more technically minded of the two, oversaw production, while Piguet specialized in quality control and led the business and marketing parts of the outfit.Īudemars Piguet’s first major milestone came in 1892, when it created the world’s first minute-repeating movement for a wristwatch. Jules Louis Audemars (1851–1918) and Edward Auguste Piguet (1853–1919), both natives of the region, were already deeply entrenched in the world of watchmaking when they joined forces to form a new house of horology near the end of the 19th century, an alliance that would be the start of a multigenerational family company. The Vallée de Joux has been a haven of watchmaking since the late 18th century, when the residents of farming communities began creating timepieces during the winter months.
The story of celebrated family-owned manufacturer Audemars Piguet and its universally acclaimed, widely coveted luxury watches begins deep in the Jura Mountains in western Switzerland.
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