Audemars Piguet continues to treat the Royal Oak Concept as a space for cultural exchange with its new Royal Oak Concept Flying Tourbillon designed with Yoon Ahn and Verbal. Limited to 150 pieces, the 38.5 mm titanium watch brings the creative partnership behind Ambush into one of the Manufacture’s most experimental lines. The release connects haute horlogerie with fashion, music, design, and contemporary culture through a watch that places focus on motion, material contrast, and the mechanics of time.
WATCHES
Yoon and Verbal enter the project with a clear design position. They come from a practice shaped by fashion, music, jewelry, and cultural production, yet the watch avoids surface-level branding. Instead, the design strips the Royal Oak Concept down to a few decisive ideas: a compact titanium case, a shimmering black aventurine dial, an open view into the movement, and a red flying tourbillon at 6 o’clock. That red element gives the watch its identity. It acts as both technical feature and visual charge.
Yoon describes creativity as something “always in motion,” a force that evolves, regenerates, and pushes forward. The watch follows that thought through its central architecture. The dial does not simply display time. It draws the eye toward the core of the movement, where the flying tourbillon turns into a point of tension. Verbal connects the red cage to energy, origin, and the Earth’s core, placing emotion and symbolism directly inside the mechanics. In that sense, the collaboration gives the tourbillon a role beyond complication. It becomes the reason the whole composition holds together.
The case keeps the Royal Oak Concept language intact, but its 38.5 mm size gives the watch a more wearable scale. Titanium supports that idea with lightness and resistance, while sandblasted, satin-brushed, and polished surfaces bring contrast to the case geometry. The black ceramic screw-locked crown, topped with a titanium chip, continues the high-tech material direction without making the design feel overloaded. Audemars Piguet keeps the form sharp, but the proportions make the release feel more direct and versatile.
The dial carries the strongest visual contrast. Black aventurine creates a deep, subtly reflective surface, while mirror-polished silver-grey bevels frame the opening into Calibre 2982. The red aluminium tourbillon top cage, anodized for this edition, marks a first for Audemars Piguet and gives the watch its immediate graphic impact. The blackened 18-carat white gold hands, filled with luminescent material, keep readability clear, while the tone-on-tone inner bezel and minute tracker maintain the discipline of the display.
Calibre 2982 gives the watch its technical depth. Through the sapphire and titanium caseback, the movement reveals an openworked barrel and part of the gear train, finished with microblasting, satin brushing, and polished bevels. Audemars Piguet uses that visibility with restraint. The watch invites closer inspection, yet it never turns the mechanism into visual noise. The result reflects the stated idea of returning to what is essential, where every visible element has a role in the larger composition.
The interchangeable strap system adds a practical note to the release. For the first time in this size, the model comes with that system, allowing the wearer to move between black and red rubber straps. Both feature a micro-mosaic motif and a quilted pattern inside the strap for comfort. The option matters because it gives the piece two moods. The black strap keeps the watch more controlled, while the red strap intensifies the tourbillon’s chromatic presence.
The Royal Oak Concept has held a special place in Audemars Piguet history since its launch in 2002 for the Royal Oak’s 30th anniversary. Built from the logic of concept cars, the line gave the Manufacture a platform for new materials, radical architecture, and advanced complications. This edition with Yoon and Verbal extends that history through a cultural lens. It does not use collaboration as decoration. It asks how a watch can carry the language of creative partnership while still staying rooted in watchmaking.
Audemars Piguet, Yoon, and Verbal deliver a Royal Oak Concept that feels precise, compact, and charged. The red tourbillon gives the watch its pulse, the aventurine dial gives it depth, and the titanium case keeps it grounded in the collection’s technical identity. As a limited edition, it speaks to collectors who understand the Royal Oak Concept as more than a design experiment. Here, it becomes a study of motion, focus, and the energy that sits at the center of time.
