The Audemars Piguet Watches Story
The roots of Audemars Piguet date back to 1875, when the 23-year-old Jules-Louis Audemars met Edward-Auguste Piguet, then only 21, at Vallée de Joux, which is considered to be the cradle of prestige watch-making. They founded a firm later known as Audemars, Piguet et Cie.
Since 1882, members of the Audemars and Piguet families have always been on the board of directors and have thus directly or indirectly run the company.As the success of the company's business was rising its customers became Tiffany & Co, Cartier and Bulgari, who rebranded and sold Audemars Piguet watches under their own house names. Today these watches are only identifiable as Audemars Piguet products by their serial numbers.
Later Audemars Piguet launched several watches like the smallest minute repeater in the world and a jumping second hand (i.e. the second hand jumps from second to second in quanta rather than progressively) pocket watch.
Their "Royal Oak", was produced in 1972 and is considered to have created the market for the stainless steel luxury watch. It was designed by Gerald Genta.
Today the company, along with Patek Philippe and Vacheron Constantin, is sometimes claimed to be one of the top three Swiss watchmakers. Every timepiece manufactured in-house is still made using the old-fashioned hand-made technique.
