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Audemars Piguet’s New Royal Oak Concept Flying Tourbillon Comes With a Bold Pop of Red

AP partnered with Yoon Ahn and Verbal of Tokyo-based jewelry and fashion brand Ambush for the release.
May 25, 2026
Close-up of a luxury skeleton watch with visible gears, black starry dial, and angular silver case on a dark background.
Audemars Piguet

Turns out the Royal Pop isn’t the only new Audemars Piguet watch on the block.

The Swiss manufacturer just added yet another limited-edition Royal Oak Concept Flying into the fold, with just 150 examples of the 38.5 mm timepiece up for grabs. This time around, though, AP tapped Yoon Ahn and Verbal, the two cofounders of the Tokyo-based jewelry and fashion brand Ambush, to bring a dash of their own creativity to the new watch.

That flair can be seen almost instantly, thanks to the bold red flying at 6 o’clock. The complication is encased in an aluminum cage topped by an anodized red top plate, in a first for Audemars Piguet. The hue is rather eye-catching against the watch’s shimmering black aventurine dial, mirror-polished silver bevels, and 18-carat white-gold hands—and that’s the point.

Close-up of a skeleton luxury watch showing gears, a red balance wheel, and a brushed metal case with the AP logo visible at the dial edge.
Close-up on the dial. Audemars Piguet

“Red has always been a powerful color for us, while the cage represents the heart of the watch—the force that keeps everything in motion,” Verbal said in a press statement. “Red evokes the Earth’s core: the origin point, the source of energy and, ultimately, the beginning of how we measure time itself.”

The semi-openworked design here also gives you a peek at the Calibre 2982, which AP crafted up just for this collab. Building on the design of its younger sibling, Calibre 2962, the new hand-wound movement offers up 72 hours of power reserve and a 3 Hz frequency.  Flip things over, and the sapphire and titanium caseback will give you an even closer look at the movement. You’ll also find “Audemars Piguet,” “Y/V,” and “” engraved there. The titanium case, meanwhile, is home to a trifecta of sandblasted, satin-brushed, and polished surfaces.

“Audemars Piguet is built on collective energy,” Ilaria Resta, AP’s CEO, said in a press statement. “Working with Yoon and Verbal offers a fresh lens on the Royal Oak Concept’s intricate architecture. Their purposeful emphasis on the and the movement’s core elements brings the mechanics of time to the fore, reflecting our shared vision to return to the essential.”

The new model is also the first in its size to have an interchangeable strap system, according to AP. As such, the watch comes with both a black and a red rubber strap (in a mosaic design to boot) that you could swap between depending on how bold you’re feeling. If you can manage to snag your hands on one, the new Royal Oak Concept Flying is priced at about $225,000, or 176,800 Swiss francs.

Close-up of a limited edition Audemars Piguet watch back, displaying gears and screws through a transparent case.
A view of the caseback. Audemars Piguet

For the unversed, the linage of Royal Oak Concept watches came to life back in 2002, when AP was celebrating the anniversary of Gérald Genta’s original Royal Oak design. From there, a long line of avant-garde timepieces was born, a way for the maison to combine high horology with more traditional design codes. That includes a flurry of experimental and innovative designs such as a black-and-white GMT ; a timepiece inspired by your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man; and six dazzling gem-set iterations with a rainbow of colors on display. As for what design Audemars Piguet will whip up next for the collection, we’ll just have to wait and see.

This article originally appeared in Robb Report US.

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