Audemars Piguet Drops Four New Colorful Royal Oak Offshores

Jeweled watches are as trendy as Marvel movies at the moment, and Audemars Piguet, having already mastered the Marvel collaboration, is expanding its universe of gemset watches. Four new Royal Oak Offshore series were introduced today to celebrate the collection’s 30th anniversary. All have gemset bezels and brightly colored dials, continuing a direction that has taken this line to new fun and creative places in the past couple of years. These new models are somewhere between sporty and glamorous, and perfect summer dressing.

The new models have “lady tapisserie” dials, with truncated pyramids that are slightly wider that those on the classic tapisserie. We can see more of the pattern because snailed section under the index ring is gone, and the AP monogram replaces the previous Audmars Piguet signature, all of which makes for a cleaner dial.

The bezels of two of the new models are set with fairly large diamonds, one with an 18k rose gold case and the other in steel. The gold model has a light blue dial and a beige strap – a rare and quirky color combination that really works. It also comes with a light blue rubber strap, matching the dial. ($57,900). The steel model with a diamond bezel has a salmon dial, a hot color for limited editions that is often paired with platinum. It looks good with white metal and this comparatively affordable steel version is likely to be a hit with collectors. The rubber strap on this one is light gray, with a darker gray option. ($40,500)

The other two models are pink gold with multi-colored dials, in an extension of the rainbow look that has been fodder for several limited editions in the industry for the past few years. One has a striking royal blue dial, and a bezel set with a gradation of gems in yellow, green and blue hues, including tsavorites and fancy colored sapphires. It comes with a blue or green rubber strap. ($110,900)

The other has a black dial, surrounded by 32 baguette-cut stones, including ruby, tsavorite, topaz, tanzanite, amethyst and sapphires in shades of orange, yellow, green, blue, violet and pink – it’s the full spectrum here. It comes on a black strap to match the dial, but can be swapped out for beige rubber strap. ($110,900)