The dial on the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak is one of the most iconic dials in the watch world and there is more than meets the eye to its making and different textures. Audemars Piguet released the Royal Oak in 1972 with a dial featuring a ‘Clous de Paris’ guilloché motif that is referred to by AP as ‘petite tapisserie’. Then in 1993, the Royal Oak Offshore was released with a similar type of tapisserie but there are small nuances between the two and the rest of Royal Oaks and Royal Oak Offshores out there. While many often are aware of the names petite, grande and méga, few know the difference between the different Audemars Piguet dials. Now, how does Audemars Piguet create these iconic 'Clous de Paris' guilloché pattern dials to begin with?
Well, just as with the majority of the dials in the watch world, everything begins with a brass plate. The brass dial is engraved by a burin —a precision metalwork chisel— that reproduces the motif on a disc attached to the machine, like a pantograph. A pointer rotates across the disc from the periphery to the center. The system is combined with a tool that forms the little lozenges between the pyramidal squares and takes between 20 and 50 minutes, depending on the dial's diameter. It's a delicate operation. A mere skip is all it takes to damage the piece as the slightest impact is as visible as dust on a mirror. Here's a video courtesy of Audemars Piguet showing the work to create one of these iconic dials. Below there's a video showing the process.
Since 2012, all dials are done in-house by Audemars Piguet after recovering 'guilloché' making machines from Canada and the United States. While mainly three different 'tapisseries' are offered by Audemars Piguet, in reality, we think that there are really four. Considering that there have been changes to the 'Petite Tapisserie' between the vintage Royal Oak references and the current ones, that should count as an additional one.
The Different Types of Audemars Piguet Tapisserie
Audemars Piguet tapisserie dials have three variants as established by AP that include the petite tapisserie, the grande tapisserie, and the méga tapisserie. However, as the experts we are when it comes to all things Audemars Piguet, we’ve found three additional subpatterns. One is what we refer to as the vintage petite tapisserie, which differs from the traditional petite tapisserie and also two different types of grande tapisserie motifs when it comes to dials on reference 15300 and dials on reference 15400 and 15500. While the nuances are really small, it is important to highlight them.
The Vintage 'Petite Tapisserie' is found only on the very first Royal Oak Jumbos —series A through C—, on mostly all Royal Oaks from the 80s and 90s and also on the first Royal Oak Offshore models bearing reference 25721. This tapisserie includes squares that are extremely small and the pattern looks much tighter. Below we have a picture of an original dial from a Royal Oak Jumbo reference 5402SA ‘B-series’ circa 1978 and one of the dial on one of the very first Royal Oak Offshores reference 25721ST.
The 'Petite Tapisserie' is exclusive to the new Extra-Thin Royal Oak Jumbo ref. 15202 —presented last year commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the Royal Oak—, the reference 26510 Extra-Thin Tourbillon and replacement dials for vintage Royal Oaks —including Jumbos 5402— and Royal Oak Offshores like the 25721.
If you look closely at the pictures, you'll notice the changes we are referring to with regards to the 'Petite Tapisserie'. The first picture is of a new replacement dial for a Royal Oak Jumbo 5402SA and the third picture shows a comparison between the original dial fitted to the same watch and the new dial.
You'll notice that the pyramidal squares from the 'Clous de Paris' pattern on the vintage dial seem smaller and there are 10 squares between the center pinion —where the hands are attached— and the calendar aperture. If you look at the replacement dial, you'll see that instead of 10 squares, there are only 9. While the change has been almost microscopic and milliimetric, our trained eyes can still tell that there's a slight difference between them.
The 'Grande Tapisserie' appears on Royal Oaks bearing references 15300, 15400, 15450, 15500, 26320 Chronograph, 26330 Day & Date, 26120 Dual Time, 26252 Perpetual Calendar, 26603 Equation of Time and 25977 Tourbillon Chronograph. The squares on the pattern are considerably larger than on the 'Petite Tapisserie' by at least fifty percent. Also, you will notice that the imprinting of Audemars Piguet and Automatic is done over flat areas of the dial that were purposefully left untouched by the burin. Between the 15300 and the 15400 the squares appear slightly smaller on the latter.
Lastly, the 'Méga Tapisserie' is the largest pattern of all dials and is typically found on most of the Royal Oak Offshore models including the Themes, Safari, Diver, Bumble Bee, Rubberclad, some of the limited editions and in all of the models within the new 44 mm references of the Royal Oak Offshore line. Now, the Royal Oak Offshore Perpetual Calendar is one of the exceptions, as its dial features the 'Grande Tapisserie' instead. The squares on the 'Méga Tapisserie' are at least double in size when compared to the 'Grande Tapisserie' and seems to always have a glossier finish.
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