Audemars Piguet puts traditional decorative skills at centre stage with artisanal unit

Ilaria Resta’s plans for Audemars Piguet will become clearer on Tuesday when the Swiss watchmaker announces “Ateliers des Établisseurs”.

The latest division, which brings together the talents of both internal and external artisans, is the brainchild of the company’s chief executive, who since taking up her role in 2024 has placed a heavy emphasis on craftsmanship and the conservation of rare and in some cases threatened watchmaking skills. Établisseurs watches will be produced in ultra-low volumes and the intention is that each will become a showcase for those rare crafts and the craftspeople behind them.

Audemars Piguet’s museum and heritage director Sébastian Vivas has been tasked with overseeing the project. He says it sparked into life two years ago during a conversation with Resta. “She’d seen the diversity in our vintage pieces and asked me how we could do that again,” he recalls. “AP’s DNA is considered to be an octagonal wristwatch, but it’s deeper than that. It’s the independence and the freedom to create.”

Resta inherited a company swelled by the popularity of the Royal Oak, the 1970s sports-luxe watch with an octagonal bezel Vivas refers to. Revenues had more than tripled over the previous 15 years and, according to Resta’s own account, grew again by 10 per cent last year (as a privately held company it is not obliged to report its figures). Morgan Stanley estimates the company’s revenues climbed to SFr2.6bn ($3.3bn) in 2025, making it the country’s third-largest brand by sales behind Rolex and Cartier.

But where Audemars Piguet’s storytelling previously centred on mainstream culture, aligning with powerful urban influences in music and sport, Resta is positioning the brand around craftsmanship and savoir faire, and giving it responsibility for the long-term survival of esoteric watchmaking techniques.

“Our objective is to support traditional and threatened knowhow,” says Vivas, who joined the company in 2012 from Jaeger-LeCoultre. “We know by discussing with people in our workshops that they fear losing their jobs because more and more crafts are replaced by machines.” Vivas names “traditional hacksaw open working” and lapidary, the process of cutting and polishing precious stones and gems, as two such crafts. Open working, which involves cutting away parts of a watch’s dial and movement to give it a filigreed look, is increasingly performed by laser-guided precision machinery.

Initially, Audemars Piguet is introducing three watches (“We don’t talk about models, we talk about watches, like people used to,” says Vivas) under the banner of the new division. Vivas says each began with “a white sheet” and will run on adapted versions of existing Audemars Piguet movements. None is a reproduction.

Établisseurs Galets, by freelance designer Xavier Perrenoud, is a 31mm pebble-shaped gold watch with a turquoise dial and bracelet links set with tiger’s eye. Établisseurs Nomade, by Ludovic Python, another freelance designer, is a pocket or pendant watch that also transforms into a table clock, set with onyx and meteorite gold and powered by the Calibre 7501, which is open-worked with a fine hacksaw. Établisseurs Peacock is a secret watch by Kenan Géraud, one of Audemars Piguet’s junior designers. Shaped like a beetle with hand-engraved wings, it animates on demand to reveal a miniature handcrafted peacock, a translucent enamel dial and the time indicated only by an hour hand.

The division’s name is a nod to tradition, too. “Before the 1950s, Audemars Piguet was a champion of the établissage system,” says Vivas. Before then, he explains, brands as they are now known were établisseurs, or assemblers, bringing together components created by a network of specialist manufacturers and workshops. “The établisseur was like a conductor, taking the best of these partners in a co-creative process,” he says. “Every watch was unique. But today, we are a fully integrated manufacturer and we master the process from first drawing to distribution.”

This vertical, largely industrialised approach to watchmaking has damped creativity, Vivas argues. “If we want to be as creative as we were during the établissage era, maybe we have to rework this a bit, taking the best of that time and the best of today.” To accelerate that process, Vivas hired a “savoir-faire curator” to survey the industry and analyse which crafts were most threatened. Resta then gave him the job of reviving the établisseur model and agreed the workshop could be based in the company’s museum building next to its restoration division, rather than in the Arc manufacturing facility.

“This is quite original,” says Vivas. “We have a museum and we restore watches, but creating them? This was an enormous challenge.” He says it helps to be so close to the restoration workshop, where components are often made by hand without original drawings. “These people share the same production philosophy,” he notes.

Watches produced by Ateliers des Établisseurs will be unique by nature of the manual, artisanal process behind them, says Vivas, but not necessarily piece unique. Further variations will follow, with different materials, decorations and stone settings. “The aim is to produce 15 to 30 watches a year in three to four years,” says Vivas, adding he has no plans to accommodate client commissions. All will be price on application.

Critical to the division’s success in recruiting a new generation of artisans, says Vivas, is the company’s pledge to credit the craftspeople involved. Promotional materials will list them, as will special leaflets delivered with each piece. “One jeweller spent six months on the bracelet of the Peacock,” he says, referring to the watch’s feather-shaped gold links, each of which is hollowed out and engraved by hand.

Vivas insists this is not a retrospective project. “This is preparing for the future,” he says. “It’s very early to speak about legacy, but this could start something in the history of watchmaking. It’s transparent and gives recognition, respect and tribute to the small workshops. We don’t want them to disappear.”