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The Audemars Piguet Company
Since 1875, situated in the village of Le Brassus right in the center of the Vallee de Joux in the Swiss Jura region, Audemars Piguet has represented the world's oldest Manufacture still ruled by the founding families. The Company has been creating and marketing under its own name exceptional watches, particularly complex models.
In 1875 Jules Audemars and Edward Piguet, two gifted professional watchmakers, worked together to establish a company for producing ultra-thin complicated watches. Nowadays, the great-grandchildren of the founders take care of the Company’s legacy founded upon age-long know-how and three basic values: tradition, perfection and innovation.
Audemars Piguet has gained a respected reputation in the world of business and economy cooperating with such prestigious jewelers as Gubelin, Tiffany & Co., Cartier and Bvlgari. The majority of the parts manufacturing is accomplished at the Manufacture. Audemars Piguet has recently involved complicated-movement specialists Renaud & Papi as the major source of AP‘s complications.
The Audemars Piguet Company unites every field of activity within the Manufacture, beginning with the producing of movements and cases in Le Brassus and its subsidiary companies in Le Locle and Geneva, to distribution fulfilled by its regional agencies and the retail trading organized through the chain of its boutiques.
The Audemars Piguet Manufacture employs about 250 people, among whom there are 100 skillful watchmakers. The Company annually produces about 20,000 fine timepieces, 40% of which are launched in Asia, 30% in North America and the rest in Europe. Approximately 90% of watches feature complicated movements.
The Audemars Piguet Museum
Audemars Piguet is synonymous not only to one of the most prestigious labels in the watchmaking industry. It is also a reflection of an essential part of watch culture. Any watch lover would be delighted to visit the Company’s museum housed in the oldest building in Le Brassus that comprises innumerable collections of exhibits unfolding the history of Audemars Piguet.
The Audemars Piguet museum, situated in the original workshop of Jules Audemars and Edward Piguet, was founded in 1993. Giving due to the brand's visionary founders, the museum offers all watch collectors and connoisseurs a wonderful opportunity to find out everything they wanted to know about Audemars Piguet technology.
The museum’s exhibits feature the major stages in the company's history, as well as numerous developments that made Audemars Piguet famous. The Grande Complication timepiece is among this fabulous collection. The museum is exhibiting its unequalled collection of antique watches, and especially of watch complications, including the Grande Complication watch, the pride of the Company.
The museum provides all the visitors with the most exciting acquaintance with the exhibits presented in order of the growing chorological complexity: first ultra-thin watches followed by the countless varieties on the legendary Royal Oak, and then by the tourbillions and watches with complicated mechanisms, as well as some incomparable enamel works. The visitors may witness two master watchmakers at complex and accurate work in the modern Audemars Piguet studio.
It is impossible to think of Audemars Piguet, without admiring their best-selling timepiece: the majestic Royal Oak. Originally introduced thirty years ago as the first stainless steel luxury sport watch, the Royal Oak has grown into a whole genre of watches, available in a wide range of sizes, movements, functions and materials, from basic time-only steel to Offshore models and complicated timepieces like the Royal Oak Tourbillon Chronograph featuring new manufacture movement. For many of watch collectors, in fact, Royal Oak is Audemars Piguet.
The Audemars Piguet Museum has been reopened after the significant reconstruction. The museum’s exhibition area has been enlarged twice; the rooms have been designed by theme. The history of Audemars Piguet has been accurately reflected in every detail.
While taking this amazing journey, the visitors are provided with precise explanations on the creative process leading to the appearance of the new watch, the development of its movement and its case, the steps taken in order to transform the raw materials into the product ready for sale.
The Audemars Piguet Museum invites everybody interested to the astounding world of fine complications, precision and beauty.
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