Despite the industry-wide focus on its much-discussed, much-debated new Code 11:59 collection, Audemars Piguet actually did launch several other noteworthy new timepieces in 2019, most of them extensions of the manufacture’s Royal Oak and Royal Oak Offshore families. From the latter series hails three new Selfwinding Chronograph models with colorful ceramic case elements and color-coordinated camouflage-motif rubber straps.
The new Royal Oak Offshore Selfwinding Chronographs feature colorful ceramic case elements, including the classic octagonal bezel.
Audemars Piguet began dipping into a bolder color palette for the Offshore series ? launched in 1993 as a bigger, more technically oriented version of the original Royal Oak ? in 2017, with its “funky color” models, and experimented with a military-look camouflage design last year (you can check out that watch here). This year’s new Royal Oak Offshore Selfwinding Chronograph models use colored, high-tech ceramic for the bezel, chronograph pushers, and screw-locked crown. Ceramic, as most watch aficionados are aware by now, is harder than steel, temperature and scratch-resistant, and hypoallergenic, and adding color to it is a long, complex process that involves achieving just the right pigmentation. The chocolate brown ceramic used for the octagonal bezel of the only rose-gold model in the new series, is a standout, used here for the first time by Audemars Piguet. Brown ceramic, used for the first time...