This new Royal Oak Spider-Man watch by Audemars Piguet and Marvel is already cult

A place of pomp and luxurious demonstrations, Dubai was the perfect place to host the very spectacular new Audemars Piguet watch. A very unique model since it pays homage to a superhero that everyone adores, Spider-Man. And if it is closely linked to New York, the skyline (urban panorama, if you prefer the French language) of Dubai, with in particular the famous Burj Khalifa tower which culminates at 828 meters in height, suits the spider man perfectly. Less smooth than his youthful face suggests, Spider-Man is undoubtedly the favorite Marvel character of Comics fans, even more so since he elegantly trudges from building to building in the cinema. Huge hits, the seven Marvel installments of Spiderman have brought in more than 7 billion dollars at the box office for 21 years and it will not stop since the actor Tom Holland has managed to preserve, even increase, the love rating of this hero with an almost normal life. If the American actor was not in Dubai on Thursday May 25 for the presentation of “his” watch and the CEO of Audemars Piguet, François-Henry Bennahmias, specifies that the timepiece is clearly inspired by Peter Parker in the Comics and not in feature films, the show was there. The show itself. In front of an audience of hand-picked guests, so GQ France, Audemars Piguet and Marvel have indeed pulled out all the stops to impress the audience. The highlight of the show is obviously the revelation of the watch, a quite singular Royal Oak Concept Tourbillon 42 mm case.

Spider-Man, again and again for a good cause

Two years after offering Black Panther a Royal Oak Concept Flying Tourbillon, it is therefore Spider-man’s turn to see himself integrated into the dial of a watch, produced in only 250 copies. “We are happy to reveal our new collaboration with Audemars Piguet and celebrate this model paying homage to the cultural icon of Spider-Man. This collaboration exemplifies the enduring appeal and global impact of the Spider-Man character, while encouraging two incredible non-profit organizations working to empower today’s youth,” said Paul. Gitter, Executive Vice President of Disney, owner of Marvel. He is referring to First Book and Ashoka, two non-profit organisations, which aim to encourage young people to become agents of change. They will be awarded, as was the case when the Black Panther model was released in 2021, the proceeds of an auction during which a unique edition of the Royal Oak Concept Tourbillon “Spider-Man” was sold in white gold (and not in titanium and black ceramic as for the 250 models) baptized Royal Oak Concept Tourbillon “Black Suit Spider-Man”. The famous black suit appeared in 1984 in the Comic Spider-Man’s black costume, without us still knowing today for what reasons. The Royal Oak Concept Flying Tourbillon “Black Panther” watch found a buyer at 5.2 million euros, making it possible, for example, to buy 50,000 books and equipment to help 750,000 students (5 to 18 years old) and 25,000 educators in these two associations, in the United States. This time, the watch found a buyer at 6.2 million euros, a record for the Audemars Piguet brand in its history. With the aim now to help 250,000 educators and 1.5 million children in the UK, Canada, Nigeria, Indonesia and Brazil, this sales record will not be too much. And it will always be the leitmotiv of superheroes to exert themselves for good causes.

Goldsmith’s work

It will be necessary to pay a lesser sum to afford the normal version of Spider-Man, around 220,000 euros. This is the price of extraordinary work, including an extraordinary skeletonized movement (a new in-house movement called Caliber 2974, with manual winding). The engineers, watchmakers and artisans of Audemars Piguet have purified the dial as much as possible in order to obtain an unprecedented level of transparency which allows the superhero to appear in relief over the entire thickness of the watch (15 mm ). When you look at him, it’s quite fascinating. His body was cut in white gold before the bottom of his fitted costume was then laser etched for precision. Inevitably, Spider-Man, who is about to launch a spider’s web to move with the grace that characterizes him, was entirely painted by hand, as a whole, which required no less than 50 hours of work. (including 20 just to paint it). Anne-Gaëlle Quinet, Head of Complications at Audemars Piguet, explained to us that it was impossible to quantify the number of hours for the entire watch, from A to Z. Because yes, the work does not stop to the character of Spider-Man, the watch had to tell the time.

At the heart of the dial, there are 18-carat gold hands coated with black PVD, as are the Arabic numerals (2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12). The bezel, like the 42 mm case, has a polished finish, black for the bezel, gray for the case. We can distinguish on the latter a few white luminescent lines which turn blue in the dark. The watch then becomes a completely different and equally fascinating object. Because if its beauty will be left to everyone’s subjectivity, objectivity requires us to talk about top-flight performance regarding this new Royal Oak. It will be available with two straps in black and gray rubber and black and red rubber, with interchangeable system and AP folding clasp. We strongly recommend the version with red if you want to put more in the shoes of Spider-Man.

Iron Man or a woman like Captain Marvel in 2025?

This Royal Oak Concept Tourbillon “Spider-Man” watch demonstrates both that watchmaking knows how to combine with pop culture to produce unique works and that cinema still fascinates watch lovers. Almost 100 years ago, in 1926 exactly, Rudolph Valentino portrait in The Sheikh’s Son in 1926, a silent film, a Cartier Tank which is considered by many to be the first watch to appear in the cinema. It was his. Since then, James Bond has traded Sean Connery’s Rolex Submariner in Dr.No in 1962 for Omega Seamaster Diver models pimped by Q and worn by Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig since 1995, Michael J. Fox, in the 1980s, made the Casio calculator of Back to the future the cheapest watch in the world known by everyone (around 40 euros) and David Hasselhoff launched the fashion for connected watches 30 years before Apple in the series K2000. These are just a few examples of the link between cinema, superheroes and watchmaking. After Black Panther in 2021 and Spider-Man in 2023, we can already bet on a third Marvel character meticulously integrated into the dial of a watch in 2025. Iron Man? Hulk? Dr. Strange (who, played in the cinema by Benedict Cumberbach wears a Jaeger-LeCoultre Perpetual Calendar)? It could also be a woman, like Captain Marvel, Black Widow, Gamora or Wanda (the Scarlet Witch), for example. They also know how to work for a good cause and know how to increase tenfold the imagination and the overflowing talent of the big brains and small hands of Audemars Piguet, no doubt about it. “The third watch is already ready, assures us François-Henry Bennahmias. It will be on another level than Spider-Man, it will be released in 2025 and the character is already chosen. But who then?! “I have to tell you that he is a character that I did not know before someone told me about him”. Mystery then. Still, Marvel, who had chosen the first two characters from a list of six proposed by Audemars Piguet six years ago, agreed to the idea of ​​the big boss of the firm in Le Brassus, Switzerland. He will bow out, as a big boss, with this latest Spider-Man watch after having enabled the Audemars Piguet brand to quadruple sales in ten years, they have now reached 2 billion Swiss francs. He will be replaced by Ilaria Resta who will have to put on the same superhero cape to perpetuate a partnership which, like that between Jay-Z and Audemars Piguet in 2005, is already cult.