Size: 38 mm
Material: gold and jewels
Price: $155,700
Audemars Piguet Just Dropped a Bevy of New Watches—Including a Mini Royal Oak
From the new Royal Oak Mini to skeletonised 37 mm versions and a wild asymmetrical reissue, AP just slayed the spring watch season.
Audemars Piguet isn’t resting on its laurels and that’s likely just how former longtime CEO, François-Henri Bennhamias, intended. The colourful head honcho left his post at the helm this past December, but he certainly left his mark by taking the brand to USD$2.7 billion in sales by 2023 before handing over the reins to newly minted CEO, Ilaria Resta, who was hired from global perfumery company, Firmenich. (Resta is the latest female addition to AP’s top brass following the appointment of Ginny Wright, who came from L’Oreal, as the CEO of North America.)
Given the lead time of R&D in watchmaking, the latest watches are certainly the mark of Bennhamias’s direction, and the watches are anything but wallflowers. You have wildly innovative new materials like a Royal Oak prototype proposed in Chroma Gold—a new technique blending white gold, rose gold, and yellow gold into a camouflage pattern—and a funky new “Crystal Sand” finish on the Royal Oak Frosted Gold Selfwinding 34 mm model. Meanwhile, Code 11.59 gets decked in an extraordinarily challenging arrangement of sapphires and diamonds, and the latest [Re]Master02 comes in a funky 1960s tv-shaped case with beveled sapphire crystal glass.
Here’s a look at how Audemars Piguet is flexing its craftsmanship muscles with these daring new timepieces.
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1. Royal Oak Mini Frosted Gold
At 23 mm across, these are not the smallest Royal Oaks ever produced: a 20mm iteration was launched in 1997, alongside a 44mm Royal Oak Grande Complication, to celebrate the model’s 25th anniversary. They’re also not the sparkliest Royal Oaks: any number of abundantly gem-set models are all vying for that crown.
But the frosted gold trio before you are definitely amongst the most attention-grabbing Royal Oaks to date, residing as they do in the intersection of two Goldilocks zones: they’re well suited to slender-wristed wearers, but not so small that they invoke outmoded notions of femininity; and they’re mischievously sparkly, but packing only carefully measured flamboyance.
Built from 18 carat yellow, white or pink frosted gold, the new pieces’ shimmering diamond-dust effect contrasts beautifully with the polished bevels. The case, bezel and bracelet have been created using a Florentine jewelry technique first applied to a Royal Oak in 2016, and again in 2018 with the help of Carolina Bucci. The frosting involves hand-hammering the metal using a diamond-tipped tool, and the effect is uniquely elegant and understated.
The dials—like that on Gérald Genta’s original steel game-changer—are uncluttered bar the petite tapisserie pattern. Unlike Genta’s original (a major counter-offensive salvo from the mechanical watches camp during the quartz crises) the beating heart for this trio is calibre 2730, a quartz movement with a seven-year battery life and easy-to-use deactivation mode.
The smallest selfwinding Royal Oaks ever made remain Calibre 2062, a 29mm piece – created by former head of Audemars Piguet’s design office Jacqueline Dimier – which retained the codes of Genta’s original model created in 1976, and the gem-set derivative released shortly afterwards.
“These mini creations pay tribute not only to Audemars Piguet’s long tradition of miniature and jewellery watches, but also to the women who have left their mark on the history of the brand, including Jacqueline Dimier to whom we owe the first Royal Oak for women, and Carolina Bucci, the mastermind behind the Frosted Gold finish,” said Ilaria Resta Audemars Piguet’s Chief Executive Officer, in a statement.
Sébastian Vivas—the maker’s Heritage and Museum Director—added that the three pieces “demonstrate the extraordinary plasticity of the Royal Oak collection, which transcends decades, gender, trends and dimensions.”
Size: 27 mm
Material: white, yellow and rose gold
Price: $51,700
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2. Royal Oak 34 mm Selfwinding in Frosted Gold
AP’s frosted gold Royal Oaks have been a hit for the brand since it debuted as a collaboration with Italian jeweler, Carolina Bucci in 2016. There have been several versions, including one with a mirrored dial, and now the nouveau classic is sporting a “Crystal Sand” finish.
The 34 mm model’s dial offers a magnified and dramatized interpretation of the hammered case and surface of the bracelet. Made from embossed ruthenium crystal, the dial is then adorned with a stamping die via electroforming, a process that forms or grows metal parts onto a model. The color is achieved through a galvanic bath of both rhodium and gold coating to accentuate its 3D form.
Size: 34 mm
Material: frosted gold
Price: $93,250
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3. Royal Oak 37 mm Openworked Dual Balance Wheel
Since 2010, Audemars Piguet’s Openworked Royal Oak models have been offered in sizes ranging between 39 mm (e.g., reference 15305) and 41 mm (e.g., reference 15407). Something about skeletonizing watches seems to cause many brands to reach for its larger cases: Perhaps it’s the larger dial for skeletonizing, or perhaps it’s a tendency to assume that men who like big watches will also prefer openworked dials. To be honest, I’ve long shared the latter assumption, though I’ve never had much reason to examine it before now.
Audemars Piguet often challenges our assumptions (consider the Spider Man Royal Oak, for example), and this new Openworked Double Balance Wheel Royal Oak at 37 mm in white or rose gold disregards assumptions about gender and watches while also underlining the small watch trend for men.
Thirty-seven mm is pretty much the perfect “unisex” size. Many brands (for example, Grand Seiko, Lange, Rolex, Zentih) offer 37 mm watches that serve as a bridge between their men’s and women’s collections, and sometimes these brands will point that out. However, in its typical avant garde manner, Audemars Piguet is way ahead of this shifting norm—especially when compared to its counterparts in the Horological Holy Trinity, Patek Philippe and Vacheron Constantin, both of which offer 37 mm watches steered more obviously toward men or women with gem setting, or the lack thereof. By offering the Openworked Royal Oak at 37 mm, Audemars Piguet cleverly sidesteps that old-school his/hers conundrum.
This watch is going to resonate with men who are continuing to lean toward smaller watches, and it’s going to resonate with women who are looking for a larger and more daring timepiece that won’t overpower (or simply overhang) their wrists. And this Royal Oak does all that gender bending by simply shrinking its skeletonized watch. In this regard alone, I think it’s a brilliant offering—and I’m not a big fan of openworked dials.
Audemars Piguet
With all that said, what’s really driving this watch’s avant garde nature is the movement, known as caliber 3132. The dual balance wheel is a unique approach to minimizing the tilt of the balance staff (the axil on which the balance wheel oscillates). When the balance wheel swings back and forth (like a pendulum), there is a tendency, due to inertia, for it to slightly tilt within its ruby mount. When the balance staff tilts (however slightly) gravity has its way with it, causing timing discrepancies in different positions (known as positional variance). By adding a second balance wheel (not just a second spring, as found in some movements), Audemars Piguet has added stabilizing mass to the mechanism, as well as a counter-force that further stabilizes the balance staff as it changes direction. Theoretically, this reduces tilt of the balance staff and reduces positional variance.
It also looks very cool, and you’ll get a good view from both the front and the back of this watch.
Size: 37 mm
Material: pink and white gold
Price: $147,300
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4. RE:Master02 Asymmetrical 41 mm in Sand Gold
If you’d told me a few years ago that brutalism—a minimalist, institutional architecture style of the mid-20th century rendered with massive concrete slabs—was going to be a catchphrase of watch design by 2024, I’d have declared you an iconoclastic crackpot. But, you’d have been right.
Audemars Piguet has picked up on the recent nostalgia for that strangely appealing architectural style. Reaching into their catalog from the 1960s, when brutalism was peaking globally, they’ve found a very cool watch to recreate—or, as AP insists, to “[RE]Master.” Audemars Piguet has borrowed the term from the recording arts: Remastering is generally a slight modernizing of a recording for current markets, so the analogy holds here, as this watch slightly modernizes vintage model.
Crafted from Audemars Piguet’s proprietary sand gold, the case will shift between white and pink gold hues, depending on ambient lighting. Using the trusted time-only only caliber 7129, this auto-winding mechanical movement is on display through a circular window in the caseback.
Sébastian Vivas, AP’s Heritage and Museum Director, states that “Between 1959 and 1963, Audemars Piguet created more than 30 asymmetrical models, most of which were produced in less than 10 pieces. [RE]Master02 is a fantastic opportunity to revive this forgotten golden age.”
Despite the wildly brutalist case, it may be the dial that steals the show here. Created using a dark blue PVD treatment over beautifully brushed surfaces, the 12 individually crafted dial segments cleverly help time telling without relying on applied markers. These dial segments are separated by galvanized sand gold partitions, and each segment sits on miniscule legs attached to a brass dial plate beneath. All of this geometric precision is accentuated by the beveled sapphire crystal.
Size: 41 mm
Material: sand gold
Price: $70,900(limited to 250 pieces)
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5. Code 11:59 Gemset 38 mm
The Code 11.59 is getting all dolled up this year in a splash of gem-set models. Two 38 mm iterations come in either 18-karat pink gold or white gold set with 533 brilliant-cut diamonds and colored sapphires.
What is notable here is the pixelated-looking setting. The pink-gold version comes with an array of navy, baby blue and yellow sapphires on the dial, while the white-gold version comes in pink and purple sapphires. Both look as though the colors were shaken in a glass and poured onto the dial so that the pattern is haphazardly arranged. It’s a fun take on a gem-set dial, one which we can’t recall seeing before and is, no doubt, extraordinarily difficult to arrange to achieve the right balance of hues. Each piece is set with the three-hand selfwinding caliber 5909.
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6. Chroma Gold Prototype
One of the coolest pieces in the new lineup is just a prototype for now, but it offers a glimpse of what’s to come in the future. Chroma Gold is a patented innovation blending yellow gold, white gold, and rose gold via Spark Plasma Sintering technology. Each gold variation is melted before droplets are atomized into powders. They are then combined in their respective pattern in a circular graphite mold which is then sintered via an electrical current. It is a first for the watch industry.
Even in jewellery it is notoriously difficult to work with multiple types of metal in one piece due to the variations in consistency and that’s without trying to blend them together. The only time we have seen the blending of two different types of gold before is in American jeweler Adam Neeley’s proprietary SpectraGold, which is currently pending a patent. AP’s Chroma Gold follows the debut of a similar method with ceramic that debuted in a prototype earlier this year allowing the company to blend various hues of the material. Camo isn’t for everyone, but the multi-hued gold version certainly makes a compelling case for the machismo pattern. On the right hands it will be irresistibly cool.
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Omega Just Unveiled 9 Watches in Its New Constellation Observatory Collection
The line-up shows up a bevy of metals and colours, too, as well as two new calibres.
Omega’s latest watch is in a universe of its own.
The Swiss watchmaker just unveiled its new Constellation Observatory Collection today, the next step in its Constellation lineage and the first two-hand hour and minute timepieces to ever earn Master Chronometer certification. And if you were paying attention to any of the dazzling watches spotted at the Oscars this year, you would’ve caught a glimpse of the new line already: Sinners star Delroy Lindo rocked one of the models on the Academy Awards red carpet, giving us a pre-release preview of the collection.
Developed at Omega’s new Laboratoire de Précision (its chronometer testing lab open to all brands), the collection houses a set of nine 39.4 mm watches. The watches underwent 25 days of scrutiny there, analysed via a new acoustic testing method that recorded every sound emitted from the timepiece to track irregularities, temperature sensitivities, and more in the name of all things precision. (Details such as water resistance and power reserve are also thoroughly examined.) This meticulous process is all in the name of snagging that Master Chronometer label, meaning that the timepiece is highly accurate and surpasses the threshold for ultra-high performance. The Constellation Observatory Collection has now changed the game, though, thanks to its lack of a seconds hand.
“Until now, precision certification has required a seconds hand,” Raynald Aeschlimann, president and CEO of OMEGA, said in a press statement. “The development of a new acoustic testing methodology has made that requirement obsolete. It is this breakthrough that has enabled us to present the Constellation Observatory, the first two-hand watch to achieve Master Chronometer certification.”
In addition to notching its place in history, the collection also debuted a new pair of movements: the Calibre 8915 and the Calibre 8914, each perched on a skeletonised rotor base. The former’s Grand Luxe iteration will appear on the 950 Platinum-Gold model in the collection, which offers up that base in 18-karat Sedna Gold alongside a Constellation medallion in 18-karat white gold with an Observatory dome done in white opal enamel surrounded by stars. The second Calibre 8915, the Luxe, will find its home on the other precious-metal models in the line, either made with the brand’s 18-karat Sedna, Moonshine, or Canopus gold seen across the case, the hand-guilloché dial, and, of course, the movement itself. (Lindo chose to rock the Moonshine Gold on Moonshine Gold iteration, priced at approximately $86,000, for Sinners‘s big night at the Oscars.) As for the Calibre 8914, it can be found in the collection’s four steel models.
Each model is a callback to myriad design features on past Omega models. That two-hand dial, for one, comes from the 1948 Centenary (the brand’s first chronometer-certified automatic wristwatch), while the pie-pan dial (seen in various blue, green, and golden hues throughout the line) and that Constellation medallion caseback both appear on watches from 1952. The star adorning the space above 6 o’clock also harks back to 1950s timepieces from Omega. And to finish off the look, you can opt for alligator straps in a variety of colours, or perhaps a gold iteration to match the precious-metal models; the brick-like pattern on the 18-karat Moonshine bracelet was also inspired by Omega watches from the ’50s.
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Inside Loro Piana’s First Sydney Boutique
A first Australian address brings the Italian house’s textile-led approach to retail full circle.
On the fourth floor of Westfield Sydney, near the Castlereagh and Market Street entrance—in the space formerly occupied by Chanel—Loro Piana has opened its first Australian boutique. It is a significant address change for that corner of the mall, and a meaningful one for the Italian house, which has sourced Australian merino wool for decades but until now had no retail presence here.
The facade is understated—creamy, tactile, more about texture than theatre. Inside, the store unfolds across a single, expansive level divided into distinct men’s and women’s wings. The separation is clear without being heavy-handed: womenswear leads from soft accessories and leather goods into ready-to-wear, while menswear occupies its own assured territory, with tailoring and outerwear given proper breathing room. Footwear (supple loafers, luxurious slides, pared-back sneakers) is particularly strong, and the sunglasses are a quiet standout: mineral-toned frames with a disciplined elegance that feels entirely of the house.
That same restraint carries into the interiors, where the surfaces do much of the talking. Walls are wrapped in the company’s own linen and cashmere; carpets are custom, dense underfoot, softening the acoustics and the pace. Oak and carabottino wood add warmth without fuss; marble accents introduce a cool counterpoint. The effect is a composed space calibrated around material, proportion and restraint.
The Spring 2026 collection now in store underscores that sensibility. Silhouettes are elongated and fluid; cashmere, silk and featherweight merino move in sandy neutrals, creams and muddied earth tones, with flashes of marigold and pale turquoise breaking the calm. Tailoring is softly structured and projects confidence without aggression. Leather goods arrive in buttery skins that feel almost pre-lived, as though time has already worked its magic.
What distinguishes Loro Piana, particularly in a market that has grown noisier by the season, is its refusal to perform luxury in an obvious register. There are no oversized insignias telegraphing allegiance. Instead, the status is encoded in fibre count, in hand-feel, in how a coat hangs from the shoulder. It assumes the wearer knows and, crucially, does not need to announce it.
Sydney’s luxury landscape has matured in recent years; global houses no longer test the waters but commit to them. Yet Loro Piana’s arrival feels different. It is not trend-driven expansion but material logic. For a country whose sheep stations have long contributed to the house’s fabric story, this boutique reads almost as a thank-you note written in cashmere.
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This Stylish, Water-Resistant Dopp Kit Might Be the Last One You Ever Buy
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If all you’re going to do is look at it, a leather Dopp kit from a fashion house is a fine choice. But if you take travelling seriously—and do it often, for business, pleasure, or both—such a bag will inevitably end up blemished with droplets of water or stained by errant flecks of toothpaste. Get stuck with a cavalier team of baggage handlers, and it can even get soaked in your favourite fragrance or anti-ageing serum.
But Patricks, the high-performance Australian grooming brand stocked in Harrods and Bergdorf Goodman, has a solution. Its limited-edition bathroom bag, called BB1, is purpose-built to protect everything inside and out. Conceived by industrial designer George Cunningham with brand founder Patrick Kidd, the cuboid design is executed in a water-resistant recycled nylon you can rinse clean. It’s lined with a thin layer of shock-absorbing foam to safeguard your products, but if a bottle somehow gets cracked in transit, the two-way water-resistant zippers and sealed seams (which keep liquids from seeping in or out) ensure that whatever leaks won’t ruin your cashmere. Inside, two dual-sided zippered compartments are ideally sized to fit toothbrushes, razors, and other small essentials.
And though its clean lines and rugged construction make it undeniably masculine, its greatest feature is borrowed from women’s makeup bags. Like the best of these, BB1 unzips to lie flat, giving you unobstructed access to everything inside. Well, you and the 999 other gentlemen who move fast enough to snag one. $289
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BB1 opens to 180 degrees, letting you scan its 4.2-litre capacity at a quick glance.
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The durable recycled-nylon is easy to maintain and woven to survive splashes and leaks from your go-to products.
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Mauve on Up
Brisbane boutique stay Miss Midgley’s offers a viscerally human experience—especially if you dig pink.
On a sun-bleached corner of Brisbane’s New Farm, where the scent of frangipani mingles with the clink of coffee cups, stands a building that has lived more lives than most people. Once a premier’s residence, an orphanage, a hospital and a private school, the 160-year-old stone structure now finds itself reborn as Miss Midgley’s—a boutique stay that teaches a masterclass in how to make heritage feel modern.
Designed and run by architect-mother-daughter duo Lisa and Isabella White, Miss Midgley’s captures the cultural confidence of a city in bloom. Nowhere is that new confidence more visible than along James Street—the leafy, slow-burn heart of the city’s fashion and dining scene—where Miss Midgley’s sits quietly at the edge, its shell-pink façade glowing in the subtropical light.
Built of Brisbane’s rare volcanic tuff, the building’s soft mauves and pinks are more than aesthetic; they are its identity. Locals still remember its 1950s incarnation as the Pink Flats, and the Whites have honoured that legacy with a contemporary blush-toned exterior, chosen to harmonise with the stone’s peachy undertones. Inside, those hues continue in dusty terracottas, russets and the faint shimmer of brass tapware. “Design can’t afford to be for the sake of fashion,” Isabella White has said. “It has to respond to what’s in front of you.”
That sentiment is tangible in every corner. Five apartments, each with their own idiosyncratic floor plan, occupy the building. Ceilings bloom with heritage plasterwork, 19th-century wallpaper fragments have been preserved in the kitchens, and tiny hand-painted notes left by the architects point out original quirks: a misaligned beam here, a hidden archway there. It’s a kind of adult treasure hunt for design lovers, where discovery feels personal and unforced.
Even the picket fence, a heritage requirement, has been reimagined in corten steel—a sly nod to regulation turned into sculpture. It’s this blend of reverence and rebellion that gives Miss Midgley’s its edge: heritage without starch, nostalgia without sentimentality.
True to Brisbane’s easy elegance, luxury here is measured not in marble or minibar but in proportion, privacy, and personality. Each apartment—from the Drawing Room and the Assembly Hall to the Principal’s Office—is a self-contained sanctuary with its own kitchen, large bathroom and outdoor space. The ground-floor units open onto leafy courtyards and welcome small dogs; upstairs, the larger suites spill onto verandahs shaded by jacarandas.
At the heart of the property lies a solar-heated pool hemmed with tropical greenery and fringed umbrellas—more mid-century Palm Springs than colonial Brisbane. Around it, guests share a petite laundry, a communal library and that rarest of urban luxuries: a car park per apartment. The atmosphere is quietly collegiate—a handful of travellers who might nod to each other on the stairs but otherwise inhabit their own creative bubbles.
The hotel’s namesake, Annie Midgley, lends the project both its name and its spirit. An ambidextrous artist and teacher, she famously instructed two students at once, writing with both hands simultaneously—a fitting metaphor for the dual vision the Whites bring to the building: one hand rooted in history, the other sketching toward the future. “Not famous, yet known,” goes the property’s understated tagline—and indeed, Miss Midgley’s has quietly become that most desirable of addresses: the one whispered about by people who know.
Sustainability isn’t an accessory here; it’s structural. The adaptive reuse of the heritage building is its boldest environmental act. Solar panels power the property; an electric heat pump warms the pool; recycled decking and tiles frame the courtyard. The metre-thick tuff walls regulate temperature naturally, and the amenities follow suit—refillable bath products, biodegradable pods, Seljak blankets spun from textile off-cuts, and compendiums wrapped in Australian-made kangaroo leather. It’s slow luxury in the truest sense.
In a world of carbon-copy hotels, Miss Midgley’s feels deeply human—a place where history isn’t curated behind glass but lives in the warmth of stone and the flicker of afternoon light. The lesson it offers is simple and resonant: that the most elegant modernity often comes not from reinvention, but from listening to what’s already there.
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