Objects of Our Time: Yoon and Verbal’s AP Royal Oak Concept

Lost amid a simultaneous forage for nostalgic sentiment, innovation, and the fuzzword-y authenticity, the circulation of luxury objects is at an impasse. To regain a sense of substance, consumption is often alchemized into cultural affiliation or leveraged by historic sermons that can efficiently uphold their relevance within the global market.

Well-aware of this reality, we often close an eye to the processes that furnish our coveted highbrow commodities — because, in all candor, some of them are too successful in holding the fantasy untainted.

One such category of objects are luxury watches. Whether it stems from earnest naïveté, novice admiration, or the impassioned confidence of an aficionado, the allure of a timepiece remains somehow inalienable. Regardless of its source, designer-duo Yoon Ahn and Verbal’s take on the Audemars Piguet’s Royal Oak Concept is both an emblem of such fascination and a veto against luxury’s faltering fantasy.

First, the dial.

Yoon Ahn comes from a design background, whereas Verbal comes from a rap background. However divergent these routes may seem from each other and the world of luxury watch design, they are complementary clauses in the grammar they devised for their creative practice.

Manifold details are AMBUSHed into the visuals of the watch: take, for example, its dial. Made of black aventurine, the fragmented dial floats like tectonic plates above the gear train. If you’ve ever been to a volcanic island (having seen images suffices), the watch conjures those specific tar black crater grounds, evoking something almost lithic through its mere look. At the edges it conjoins with the watch’s titanium case, forging stability amid an infrastructure otherwise defined by movement and time’s passing.

Moving on to the case.

The 38.5 mm case of the Flying Tourbillon (a size classified as “perfect” by Ahn, who confessed she would have probably never worn anything exceeding that) is made out of Grade 5 titanium. The 2002 Concept 1 watch that served as inspiration was made of alacrite, a durable cobalt alloy specifically made for space technology. Since it’s technically not the soundest material for a timepiece that is meant to be worn more or less casually, the prototype’s successors were all promoted to titanium. And yet, even without alacrite, the watch still holds a meteorological charge. Conversely, despite the outer spatial intricacies, it has a very early-internet look: its lapidary wristband looks as if it’s interrupted amid rendering, with its micro mosaic pattern resembling a mass of disparate pixels.

Moving on to the case.

The 38.5 mm case of the Flying Tourbillon (a size classified as “perfect” by Ahn, who confessed she would have probably never worn anything exceeding that) is made out of Grade 5 titanium. The 2002 Concept 1 watch that served as inspiration was made of alacrite, a durable cobalt alloy specifically made for space technology. Since it’s technically not the soundest material for a timepiece that is meant to be worn more or less casually, the prototype’s successors were all promoted to titanium. And yet, even without alacrite, the watch still holds a meteorological charge. Conversely, despite the outer spatial intricacies, it has a very early-internet look: its lapidary wristband looks as if it’s interrupted amid rendering, with its micro mosaic pattern resembling a mass of disparate pixels.

The name!

Watch names are known to be stubbornly reliant on heritage. The Royal Oak Concept devised by Yoon and Verbal is a take on the Concept 1 watch initially conceived in 2002—a model Verbal had tracked down for a while, right after his AP hunt commenced due to a sporadic visit to a Tokyo watch store.

Somehow rudimentary in its formulation, the “flying tourbillon” in the name of the model reflects the hand-wound regulating organ of the watch. Yoon & Verbal’s AP possesses its very own Calibre 2982, an upgraded version of the classic 2964, the crux of previous Royal Oak Concept models. What does that mean, precisely? The intricate-looking apparatus of a watch is propelled by a mini-turbine positioned at its core, and Yoon & Verbal’s model has its entire mechanical minutiae on display. As the organs of the watch are brought to the fore, the tourbillon turns its functionality into a compelling exoskeletal visual lingo.

The myth.

We tell ourselves stories in order to live, as famously posited by Joan Didion. In contemporary times, it would be even more astute to note how we tell ourselves stories in order to create and consume.

Previously a horological skeptic, Yoon Ahn’s conversion into the world of luxury watch design happened in stages. Initially, she started getting involved with the history of AP and Swiss watchmaker Gérald Genta’s lasting impact on the craft. It was then that watchmaking began to evoke something profoundly earthly in her. When describing the color scheme of the collaboration, Ahn excitedly admitted to its telluric ties: “Red evokes the Earth’s core: the origin point, the source of energy and, ultimately, the beginning of how we measure time itself.”

The night they both visited the AP headquarters, the starlit sky that loomed over the Swiss precinct connected the ancient necessity of timekeeping and their transformation into art in the centuries thereafter. The myth was, all of a sudden, alive and thriving.

At last: the price…

This is where things turn potentially dystopian. Depending on where you live, even in the current housing market, buying a one-bedroom flat is likely more affordable than investing in one of the 150 Yoon x Verbal’s AP watches. Could that be the flashpoint bearing its contrapuntal beauty? Unlike many of the things that were inadvertently converted into luxury items, the astronomical price of the watch is unmoored from the fluctuating economic state of the world; it’s been so that you can only set your heart on it from a distance since its very first winding. Costing a modest CHF 176,800 (approximately 200,000 euros), I feel like it must have something to do with the appeal of observing it from afar, something akin to speculating about an object in outer space from a telescope, gambling your safety by walking on murky volcanic ground, or looking out from a vista toward a starry Swiss sky.

Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Concept on the wrist of 032c's editor-in-chief Joerg Koch.

Verbal and Yoon together with Ilaria Resta (middle), CEO of Audemars Piguet, at FUTURA in Seoul.