A LEAP IN TIME
For the horologically inclined — one might say dependent, in many cases — it’s a phrase that’s etched onto the cognitive backplate as indelibly as “I have a dream”, “One small step for mankind”, and “In the beginning”. It’s a message that has greeted gazillions of air passengers, via a giant billboard, as they have disembarked at Geneva: “To Break the Rules, You Must First Master Them.” An intrepid statement, indeed, and few makers have earned their right to express it more comprehensively than the family-owned watchmaking titan to whom this trademark message belongs: one founded by childhood friends Jules Louis Audemars and Edward Auguste Piguet in the Vallée de Joux in 1875.
Since the pair united more than a century-and-a-quarter ago — the latter armed with 10,000 francs, the former with 18 self-devised mechanical movements — Audemars Piguet has chalked up a wealth of game-changing innovations to
