About Us

Made in Le Brassus

Our company’s exceptional story has all unfolded here, in Le Brassus. Discover our singular approach to watchmaking, our history and our ongoing story.

Our Savoir-Faire

Audemars Piguet draws upon its unique blend of tradition, experience and knowledge in order to push the boundaries of fine watch-making and reinvent the rules the manufacture so perfectly masters.

Octavio Garcia, Audemars Piguet's Art Director, is the heart and soul of the design process. His work has led to a profoundly identifiable style across the collections.
The watch designer’s creative freedom is explored. Volume, shape, texture and colors give the future watch its ideal face and shape.
As an authentic manufacturer, Audemars Piguet produces all watch parts in-house. For movement components in particular, this process involves thousands of a millimeter precision.
External watch components such as the case are carefully fashioned and given several surface treatments.
Decorative operations, such as circular graining, Côtes de Genève and sunray brushing, are performed with machines guided by the human hand.
Distinguishing high-end timepieces involves decorating almost all components, except those parts most sensitive to precision.
Delicate operations such as beveling (or chamfering), specular polishing and engraving, are done exclusively by hand using traditional tools
In the end, the artisan ensures that when the caliber is assembled it is in balance and harmony.
The watchmaker assembles the watch pieces on a base component called the mainplate. Depending on the complexity of the movement, this stage may last several months.
The regularity and accuracy of a movement are regulated by adjusting the balance spring so that optimal results are obtained in the five most common positions a wristwatch will experience.
Casing up the calibre is an extremely delicate operation. After first fitting the dial and the hands, the crown and the pushers are connected to their movement and tested.
Each new grande complication requires a Master Watchmaker to spend several months fitting, adjusting, beveling, and polishing the hundreds of components needed to the exact size and thickness required. Once compliant, it is assembled, checked and finally reassembled.
It is Audemars Piguet's duty to renovate its old watches in its own restoration workshop. The workshop often brings back to life watches that are over a century old.

INSIDE THE MANUFACTURE DES FORGES

The conception and production of Audemars Piguet movement components is highly complex and involves thousands of millimeter precision.

From 1875 until Today

World Firsts

1892: Development and production of the first minute repeater wristwatch.
1915: The smallest five-minute repeater calibre ever made, with a diameter of just 15.80 mm.
1924: First jumping-hour wristwatch.
1925: World’s thinnest pocket-watch calibre 81.32 mm.
1934: First skeletonised pocket watch.
1946: World’s thinnest wristwatch.
1957: First Audemars Piguet wristwatch with a perpetual calendar.
1967: World’s first thinnest selfwinding calibre with central rotor (2.45 mm).
1972: Birth of the Royal Oak, the first steel high-end sports watch.
1978: First selfwinding ultra-thin perpetual calendar wristwatch with central rotor.
1986: First ultra-thin (5.5 mm thick including the case) selfwinding tourbillon wristwatch.
1989: Smallest selfwinding perpetual calendar watch.
1994: First wristwatch with Grande and Petite Sonnerie, quarter repeater striking on two gongs.
1996: First selfwinding Grande complication watch.
1997: First Grande Sonnerie chiming model, minute repeater with three gongs and three hammers.
2000: First model with Equation of Time, sunrise and sunset times and perpetual calendar.
2006: Audemars Piguet direct-impulse escapement.
2008: First watch featuring a carbon case and movement.
2009: High-frequency chronometer with Audemars Piguet escapement and double balance-spring.

1982

Development and production of the first minute repeater wristwatch.
1978

First selfwinding ultra-thin perpetual calendar wristwatch with central rotor.
2008

First watch featuring a carbon case and movement.

Established in 1875

Audemars Piguet Founders — Jules-Louis Audemars and Edward Auguste Piguet

Audemars Piguet is not just a company. It’s still an independent family business established in and continually operating from Le Brassus, in the Vallee De Joux, the cradle of fine watchmaking.

OUR FOUNDERS

In 1875 Jules-Louis Audemars, decided to join forces with Edward-Auguste Piguet, in order to develop and craft watches equipped with complex mechanisms. They shared a passion for watchmaking and a mastery of the art of precision that still characterizes the company today.

A HISTORY OF INDEPENDENCE

Today, Audemars Piguet is still the oldest fine watch-making manufacturer never to have left the hands of its founding families. This gives the company an independent streak that allows it to go its own way and follow its own unique vision.

The Foundation

School boat financed by the Foundation for the Selva Viva program, an Amazon rainforest preservation project. Peru, 2007.
Entry of the Discovery Path, financed by the Foundation for Audemars Piguet's 130 year anniversary. Risoud Forest in Switzerland, 2006
To mark its tenth anniversary, the Audemars Piguet Foundation has decided to finance a large-scale project: raising the awareness of Japanese children with regard to the essential role of the tropical forest.
Stone walls restored thanks to a training workshop partially financed by the Foundation. Jura vaudois Park in Switzerland, 1995.

THE MISSION

Since 1992, the Audemars Piguet Foundation has worked to contribute to the conservation of forests in the world, the protection of the environment and awareness among young people.

OUR PROJECTS

The foundation has worked in over thirty countries. Our latest ventures include the restoration of 500 hectares of woodland at 17 locations in Scotland, the training of biodiversity guards in Ecuador, the revitalization of mangroves in Senegal, and tree-planting and support for practical environmental education in Jaipur District, India.

Our Ambassadors

Over the years we’ve developed friendships with some of the world’s amazing people and organizations. They come from different fields, but they share our love of creativity and independence.