Feature: Was the Royal Oak Gerald Genta’s Only AP Watch?

For a watch that has made such a seismic impact on the industry, the Royal Oak’s conception was a fleeting affair. A broom cupboard quickie rather than an all-night-long kama sutra session, you could say.

Famously it involves the designer Gerald Genta receiving a phone call one evening in 1970 from Audemars Piguet’s then managing director George Golay who had an urgent request.

The Swiss Industries Fair, a precursor of Baselworld, was the very next day. Could Genta rustle up a waterproof steel sports watch design—something truly exceptional—to impress his discerning Italian and French distributors?

An Audemars Piguet Royal Oak from its launch year, 1972. Image courtesy of Bonhams

He had until the following morning to come up with the goods—so, er, no pressure, then! Genta, a seasoned pro at 39, worked through the night, taking inspiration from a ‘scaphander’ helmet (those worn by deep sea divers) and adding a porthole-shaped bezel with visible screws.

The following day he delivered his sketches and although Golay was sceptical of this odd-looking watch, which was unlike anything in the brand’s history, his French and Italian clients liked it enough to buy 400 pieces each.

The rest is horological history and Genta, who had already made his name with the popular Universal Geneve Polerouter, went on to design several other iconic models for various brands over the following decades.

Other AP Designs?

There’s a common misconception that the AP Royal Oak was Genta’s only watch for Audemars Piguet when in fact he probably designed many more, albeit none that had the same impact.

Despite having his own design company which operated under his name, Genta was a freelance gun-for-hire during that period, working for several brands—although his contract for AP did specify that they had first refusal for any designs he came up with.

Could this 1970s Audemars Piguet quartz model be a Genta creation? Image courtesy of Bonhams

In a 2009 interview he gave just two years before his death, he said that he had been contributing designs to Audemars Piguet since 1953, almost two decades before the Royal Oak went into industrial production. “All classic Audemars Piguet pieces are made by Gérald Genta. Up until the time of the Royal Oak,” he claimed, although “all” might be stretching it a bit as AP was making wristwatches well before Genta was even born.

“I designed a lot of models for Audemars Piguet, among which some continue to enjoy great success,” he added. “They continue to be produced with sometimes just a faint touch-up, a slight modification to the dial, or to the hands.”

The Stealth Creator

So it’s almost certain that other Audemars Piguet watches of that era involved Genta’s golden touch. Unfortunately, due to the often anonymous nature of his work, his designs often went uncredited.

“It’s the client who has the renown,” he said in his later years. “I had to wait very patiently before the public could learn that it was me who had made the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak.”

Aside from AP, Genta designed luxury watches for an astonishing list of leading watch brands, beginning with the American watchmakers Benrus and Hamilton (before the latter moved to Switzerland) and ending with the work he did for his last company, Gerald Charles, having already sold the Gerald Genta brand to Bvlgari.

Watch industry legend, Gerald Genta, was responsible for countless designs

In between, he freelanced for pretty much every leading brand. These include Omega, Patek Philippe, IWC and Breguet as well as high-end jewellers such as Chaumet and Van Cleef & Arpels. Little is said these days about his work with Rolex. Their discontinued King Midas model, an elegant gold dress watch, was actually a Genta creation.

So if you’re a collector of any watches from the 20th century, especially of AP models from the 1950s to the 1970s, take a close look at them and see if you can detect the accomplished hand of Genta, a man whose astonishing legacy will linger for a long time yet.

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