Audemars Piguet has been producing the Royal Oak since 1972, and the Concept line, launched in 2002, has always been the Manufacture’s laboratory for pushing that legacy into new technical and aesthetic territory. The Royal Oak Concept Flying Tourbillon is among the most progressive expressions in that lineage, combining a hand-wound flying tourbillon with the collection’s signature architectural case.
Yoon Ahn and Verbal are the co-founders of Ambush, the Tokyo-based label they established in 2008. Yoon serves as creative director and has also held a senior design role at Dior, while Verbal is a music producer and one half of the hip-hop duo M-Flo. Together, they have built Ambush into one of the most distinctive creative voices in contemporary fashion, with a reputation for work that is precise, conceptual and never arbitrary.
“Audemars Piguet is built on collective energy. Working with Yoon and Verbal offers a fresh lens on the Royal Oak Concept’s intricate architecture. Their purposefulemphasis on the tourbillon and the movement’s core elements brings the mechanics of time to the fore, reflecting our shared vision to return to the essential.” Ilaria Resta, Chief Executive Officer, Audemars Piguet
The collaboration brings those two worlds together around a 38.5 mm titanium Royal Oak Concept Flying Tourbillon, anchored by a vivid red flying tourbillon and powered by Calibre 2982, a movement developed specifically for the project.
The new calibre
It is worth taking a moment to appreciate the decision to build a new calibre specifically for this collaboration. Calibre 2982 grows out of the foundations of Calibre 2964, the Manufacture’s established hand-wound flying tourbillon movement, but it has been developed into something with its own distinct feel. It measures 29.5 mm across and a very trim 6 mm deep, delivers a minimum power reserve of 72 hours, beats at 3Hz, and can be appreciated from both sides of the watch through the sapphire and titanium caseback. This is not a movement that hides itself; it was made to be looked at, and Audemars Piguet has ensured there is plenty worth seeing.
The detail that catches the eye and keeps it is the tourbillon cage, turned from aluminium and finished with an anodised red top plate, which is something the Manufacture has simply never done before in its long history stretching back to 1875.
Getting an anodised finish onto a component this small and this mechanically exacting is genuinely demanding work, and the fact that the result is as assured as it is speaks well of everyone involved. Red bridges frame the cage within the partly openworked movement, and the hand-applied decoration throughout the calibre has the kind of depth that makes turning the watch over and spending a few quiet minutes with it feel like time well spent.
The colour of conviction
The case is titanium, worked across three surface treatments: sandblasted, satin-brushed and polished finishes play across the Royal Oak Concept’s angular architecture in a way that responds beautifully to changing light. At 38.5 mm in diameter and just 11.4 mm thick, it sits on the wrist with a lightness that belies the complexity inside, and the glare-proofed sapphire crystal, matching display caseback, black ceramic crown with titanium insert and 20-metre water resistance all add up to a watch that has been considered properly from every direction.
The partly open-worked black aventurine dial has a depth and shimmer to it that catches the light differently with every movement of the wrist.
Set against the black aventurine, the red anodised tourbillon catches the eye effortlessly. The blackened 18-carat white gold hands, filled with grey luminescent material, show hours and minutes cleanly, and the movement below is left to speak for itself.
“Red has always been a powerful colour for us, while the tourbillon cage represents the heart of the watch. It is the force that keeps everything in motion. Red evokes the Earth’s core: the origin point, the source of energy and, ultimately, the beginning of how we measure time itself.”
Verbal, Co-Founder and Music Producer, Ambush
No boundaries, by design
The proportions of this watch deserve particular attention. The Royal Oak Concept collection has typically lived at 42 mm and above, with case thicknesses that can reach close to 15 mm, so a 38.5 mm diameter and 11.4 mm thickness here is a welcome change of pace. It makes this arguably the first Royal Oak Concept Flying Tourbillon that wears with real versatility across different wrists, and it opens the watch to an audience that the collection’s previous scale did not always accommodate.
“Creativity is always in motion. You keep evolving, regenerating, moving forward, so the design of this limited edition had to follow that energy. For me, it was about balance, about creating something truly universal that anyone could connect with.”
Yoon Ahn, Co-Founder and Creative Director, Ambush
Two rubber straps are included, one black and one red, each carrying a tactile micro-mosaic pattern across the outer surface and a quilted inner lining that sits warmly against the wrist, fastened with a titanium AP folding clasp. Switching between them takes seconds, and the difference in character between the two is more pronounced than you might expect.
Yoon and Verbal knew what they wanted to make, and Audemars Piguet trusted them to make it. The watch is better for that trust. Only 150 exist, which means most people will only ever see it in photographs, but even then it is easy to understand why this particular collaboration worked as well as it did.