Audemars Piguet Kicks Off 2025 (and its 150th Birthday) With a New Perpetual Calendar

Audemars Piguet enters 2025 celebrating its 150th anniversary, and this week we’re getting a first look at the manufacture’s novelties for the semester, which include a trio of watches showcasing an innovative, all-new perpetual calendar movement. The perpetual calendar complication has served as a cornerstone of Audemars Piguet’s foundation for much of its history, and the lineage of the outgoing Caliber 5135 includes some of the brand’s most unforgettable references. Today, Audemars Piguet begins writing the next chapter in its perpetual calendar story with the introduction of Caliber 7138, which boasts the most ergonomic execution of the complication we’ve ever seen from the brand. 

For the first time ever from Audemars Piguet, the new Caliber 7138 allows the wearer to adjust the time, the full calendar, and the phases of the moon, all through a single crown. Gone is the need for a special tool to access pushers alongside the case to make these adjustments, all thanks to a new system that Audemars Piguet has developed around the keyless works for this movement. What’s more, the maison has done so without compromise to the svelte nature of the movement. 

Looking back at Audemars Piguet perpetual calendar movements you’ll notice a theme emerging around their ultra-thin construction. Caliber 7138 continues this trend, measuring 4.1mm in thickness, i.e., shaving off .4mm from its predecessor, Caliber 5135. This means that the new 41mm Royal Oak references housing the movement each measure a mere 9.5mm in total thickness, while the Code 11:59 models, with their very different case construction, clock in at 10.6mm in thickness. 

Caliber 7138 is a self-winding movement, but that part feels less of a priority thanks to the ease with which everything can be set and adjusted. This isn’t exactly a new feature for perpetual calendar movements, but it’s generally seen in modular-style movements rather than fully integrated examples as we see here. A view under the dial makes things all the more impressive, revealing the levels of programming needed to support each of the functions via the crown within 4.1mm of thickness.

The crown itself uses three positions, but there’s a hidden fourth stop as well. When seated closest to the case, the crown winds the movement, as you’d expect. At the first pulled-out stop, it adjusts the date when turning clockwise, and the month while turning anti-clockwise. The next stop allows the wearer to adjust the time both forward and backward. Finally, pressing the crown back in a single stop allows for adjustment of the day (and subsequent week of the year) and the phases of the moon at 6 o’clock. There is a 24-hour display within the day of the week subdial, with a red portion at its top, which represents the “no-adjustment” zone within which the calendar cannot safely be adjusted. 

Audemars Piguet is launching the new movement inside three new references, consisting of two Royal Oaks and a single Code 11:59. Each of the watches also gets a “1 of 150” limited-edition variation featuring the old-school script Audemars Piguet logo at the bottom of the dial. The 41mm Code 11:59 is rendered in 18k white gold with a smoked blue embossed dial set on a blue rubber strap with calfskin lining. Price is set at CHF 109,300. (I’ll pause here to acknowledge that the Code 11:59 has matured rather nicely since its somewhat controversial release in 2019. The design seems to work best when hosting the brand’s complications, and this example is no exception.)

The Royal Oak references carry a bit more weight historically, and no doubt represent just the first appearance of many to come with Caliber 7138. Here we find a steel reference with a blue Grande Tapisserie dial, priced at CHF 109,300, and an 18k sand-gold reference with a matching sand-gold Grande Tapisserie dial priced at CHF 130,000.