Steel in the Game

Competition is heating up in the luxury sports watch category. We look at the latest and greatest players in the integrated-bracelet field

- Christian Barker

Two of the most iconic timepieces in existence came into being within a span of five years in the 1970s—the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak and Patek Philippe’s Nautilus. Both were inspired by aquatic motifs: the former, vintage diving helmets; the latter, ships’ portholes. Both were the brainchildren of the late, great Gérald Genta, the most important watch designer of the 20th century. And pivotally, both featured integrated bracelets, eschewing the standard lug and spring bar set-up affixing most watch straps, and instead seamlessly uniting case and bracelet.

They defined and dominated a new market sector occupied by high-priced, exquisitely crafted, sporty steel timepieces. As historian and head of complications at Audemars Piguet’s manufacturing facility, Michael Friedman researches the evolution of the watchmaker’s complex movements. “The 1972 stainless-steel Royal Oak created an entirely new category. The luxury sports watch, which is thriving today and stronger than ever before,” he says. Friedman believes that the Royal Oak’s “design is immensely powerful and recognisable, and has become among the most iconic of all of Gérald Genta’s designs, which is why it remains relevant and contemporary even nearly 50 years after its premiere.”