Audemars Piguet’s Complicated New Pocket Watch Can Date Holidays For the Rest of the Century

While it’s hard to imagine the return of the top hat or the monocle, the pocket watch never quite went the way of the horological dodo—at least not completely. “As collectible curios, displays of technical prowess, historical or personal mementos—or simply as art objects—quality pocket watches are once again gaining traction with younger generations of watch enthusiasts,” says James Lamdin, founder of Analog:Shift and vice president of pre-owned and vintage timepieces for the Watches of Switzerland Group USA. And though these timekeepers may have taken a back seat to wristwatches during World War I, their larger size and capacity to house multiple complications makes them an ideal proving ground for maisons eager to show off their watchmaking chops.

Enter Audemars Piguet’s 50 mm 150 Heritage Ultra-complication Universal Calendar Ref. 75150PT.OO.01 pocket watch, designed by the house’s director of watch conception Giulio Papi to fit within the small secondary pocket often found on blue jeans. One might expect a timepiece housing some 47 functions and 30 complications to fight the confines of your average pair of Levi’s, but its surprisingly compact profile is the result of careful consideration. The new Calibre 1150 was designed using 3-D modeling such that nearly all functions are easily engaged and adjusted via three pushers fitted within and flanking the crown, while all calendar functions are displayed via dedicated apertures in order to minimize visual clutter.

A completely hand-engraved case depicting portraits of the maison’s founders and a dedicated 150th anniversary logo gives way to a stunning 18-karat-white-gold dial covered in translucent-blue grand feu enamel. The white-gold indices, also hand-engraved, and star trails, evoking the night sky, are joined by 18-karat-pink-gold hands, a visible flying-tourbillonTourbillonA watch complication invented around 1801 by Abraham-Louis Breguet that rotates the escapement in a cage to counter the effects of gravity on accuracy. Tourbillons are mesmerizing and very difficultGo to Tourbillon Glossary cage, a dual-register split-seconds flyback chronograph, and a semi-Gregorian perpetual calendar. But this is only half the story, as opening the caseback reveals the watch’s Supersonnerie soundboard, which is constructed of sapphire crystal to offer a view of the movement. Finally, housed inside the caseback is the pièce de résistance: the universal calendar.

Effectively a mechanical calculator, this complicationComplicationAny function on a mechanical watch beyond telling the hours, minutes, and seconds, such as a calendar, chronograph, moon phase, or tourbillon. Complications demonstrate a watchmaker's technical skill, and moreGo to Complication Glossary—operating independently from the new movement—uses the Gregorian calendar as a reference to coordinate solar, lunar, and lunisolar cycles via eight complications including 18 indications such as: year, leap year, month, date, week number, moon phase, and seasonal markers like solstices and equinoxes. It can also tell you the dates of nine cultural celebrations: Christmas, Saint John’s Day, Ramadan, Diwali, Rosh Hashanah, Pesach, Vesak, Easter, and Chinese New Year. All is controllable via a simple bidirectional wheel that resets the indications instantaneously and remains synchronized from 1900 through 2099.

This niche mechanical array of celestial esoterica emanated from a conversation in 2023 between Papi and Ilaria Resta, Audemars Piguet’s C.E.O. They noticed the growing interest in pocket watches from collectors, so they decided to conceive a modern iteration bringing together as many watchmaking skills as possible in recognition of the company’s 150th anniversary last year. Just 20 months after showing Resta his first sketch in January of 2024, Papi had a working prototype; finally, by early 2026, two examples had been produced in platinum—one for the Audemars Piguet museum, and one to be sold to an important collector. (Eight more pieces produced in 18-karat white gold, a softer material that is significantly easier to shape, will be available later this year.)

The achievement is another exercise by Audemars Piguet in showing it is far more than a one-trick pony—it can and does offer more than the Royal Oak. “I think A.P. is much more multifaceted than it has been over the last few years,” says Resta. “There is an appetite for complexity, but wearable complexity—they don’t want a watch that goes in a drawer. They want to have a watch they can see, to live [with] every day, but that has mechanical interest for them. So that’s the avenue for us—a very livable, complicated watch with no constraint of shape.”

All of which suggests that the humble watch pocket may yet have a future. Play your cards right, and the most inconsequential detail in your wardrobe could be your biggest flex yet—a discreet way to wear one of the most sophisticated timekeepers ever made. 

This article originally appeared in Robb Report US.