The film is a tribute to the iconic design of the Royal Oak, created overnight in 1972 on a shockingly bold move, forever transforming the business of luxury watchmaking.

The animated 59-second film depicts a journey soaring through the always evolving cultural trends that the Royal Oak have been part of: sport, fashion, design, contemporary art, architecture, music. From the waterproof diving suit that was the very first inspiration of the designer, to the newly born metaverse, each decade has been thoroughly crafted with its own pop-cultural iconography, in collaboration with specific artists. In this fun race, with a youth-spirited audacity that breaks all codes of the industry, we honor the design that made the Royal Oak so unique: the iconic octagon.

The campaign was released on April 15th 2022, precisely 50 years after the Royal Oak was first presented to the Basel Fair for the first time on April 15th 1972. It came as a shock to the industry as it was the first ever automatic luxury sports watch made of steel, whereas all the competitors were using gold or platinum. Worse, as it was made entirely by hand, it was more expensive and much longer to produce than any others.

And its iconoclast octagonal design, whereas most watches faces were round, was a total gamechanger: its shape and the eight screws ensuring its waterproofness were inspired to designer Gerald Genta by his childhood memory of a diving suit. Hence the very first scene of the film.

The stake was huge: create an immersive journey through pop cultural icons to honor the brilliant craft of the finest watch ever designed. The very thorough iconographic documentation work we did with directors Temple Caché took months, to be able to build a structure to the film with hundreds of references. Design, fashion, animation, press, sport, everything was curated to form a consistent and very accurate journey. Then we produced every element separately with specific artists, shooting the live action in Bulgaria with the help of a fashion designer, drawing the mangas in Japan, creating the metaverse 3D avatar with a German studio, recording an evolutive track with French producer NTO.

The mix of those numerous sources was then composited in Temple Caché’s studio in the south of France, smoothly recreating the textures of 80s magazines, the Millennium Bug fright or bold first steps into the metaverse.