Audemars Piguet Doubles Down on Ceramic in New Royal Oak Offshore Chronographs

Audemars Piguet celebrates 150 years of watchmaking in 2025, and the high-horology maison from Le Brassus, Switzerland, has already made its first big statement of the year with the release of an all-new perpetual calendar movement inside three models from its Royal Oak and Code 11:59 collections (which you can read about here). Of course, as the brand knows, it wouldn’t be an anniversary celebration without including its biggest, boldest watch family, the Royal Oak Offshore — which welcomes two new models that trumpet Audemars Piguet’s continuing commitment to optimizing ceramics in watchmaking.

Both of the new models hail from the core Royal Oak Offshore Selfwinding Chronograph family. One of them sports an engaging “three-tone” design, with black ceramic used for the 43mm case; green ceramic for the emblematic octagonal bezel, the screw-locked crown, and the chronograph push-pieces; and titanium for the caseback and details like the bracelet studs and push-piece guards. The other watch, slightly smaller at 42mm and mounted on an integrated bracelet, boasts a monochromatic black aesthetic, with its case and bracelet both crafted primarily from black ceramic and featuring just a smattering of contrasting elements, including the steel bezel screws and titanium caseback frame. The larger model, on a dark green textured textile strap (with additional black rubber strap included), houses A.P.’s automatic Caliber 4401, while the smaller one contains the similar Caliber 4404.

Drilling down into the details, the dial of the Royal Oak Offshore Selfwinding Chronograph /43mm continues the dark green tone of the bezel, here executed in a PVD finish,with the Offshore’s signature “Mega Tapisserie” checkerboard texture. Complementing it are an inner bezel and snailed subdials, at 3, 6, and 9 o’clock, in black. The baton hands and hour markers are made of white gold and filled with a silver-gray-toned Super-LumiNova. The titanium caseback has a sapphire pane to show off the movement, and Audemars Piguet’s interchangeable strap system allows the wearer to easily switch between the rubber and textile options without tools.

On the black, “Mega Tapisserie” dial of the 42mm model, the snailed counters and inner bezel are blackened in a galvanic process that ensures homogeneity throughout all the elements; the markings for the tachymeter scale and chronograph subdials are in dark gray, and the white-gold hands and hour indexes are blackened and treated with a gray lume. The integrated ceramic bracelet, which fastens to the wrist with a triple-folding titanium clasp, features the same meticulous level of refined finishing as the cases of both watches.

Both movements inside the new timepieces are made in-house and are equipped with a column wheel/vertical clutch system for the chronograph, which prevents unwanted jumping of the hands when starting or stopping a time measurement. Both also have an integrated flyback function, with a patented zero-reset mechanism that instantly re-sets the hands to zero when the wearer begins timing a new interval, and maintain a lengthy power reserve of 70 hours, or nearly three days.

As fans of Audemars Piguet have come to expect, both calibers are decorated to an elite level, with côtes de Genève; vertical, circular, and sunray brushing; circular graining and polished chamfers. Of the few notable differences between the movements, one is subtle — Caliber 4404 is a smidgen thicker than Caliber 4404, 8mm as opposed to 6.8mm, owing to having more parts — while the other is more visually apparent. Both use a rotor made of 22k gold, but the Caliber 4401 inside the 43mm watch applies a dark gray finish to this component while the Caliber 4404 retains a golden gloss.

The Royal Oak Offshore Selfwinding Chronograph/43mm (Ref. 26420CE.OO.A063VE.01) is priced at $58,400. The 42mm model (Ref. 26238CE.OO.1300CE.02) retails for $86,900.