Two diamonds at twelve is the entire setting on this dial, and the restraint is the point. The 37 mm generation this reference belongs to has no middle position between minimal and total: two references pave the dial, the bezel and the bracelet completely, while three carry a Grande Tapisserie dial on a strap with white gold applied hour-markers of which only the pair at twelve is set. There is nothing in between. This is the coloured one of those three, and the only one of the five references in the family where the appeal is chromatic rather than material. The other two carry rhodium and beige dials, both neutrals, which makes purple the only colour in the family and this the only reference where the dial rather than the setting is the distinguishing element. Everything else in the family is identified by how much of it is covered in stones. Purple is also a shade the Royal Oak has used rarely, and pairing it with a white gold case and a matching alligator strap produces a watch that is emphatic in colour and almost bare in decoration.
The case is 37 mm across and 9.8 mm thick in white gold, with the octagonal bezel set with diamonds. The eight hexagonal screw positions survive the bezel setting and remain the fixed points the stones are arranged around. The dial is purple with the Grande Tapisserie pattern, the larger of the two grids the collection uses, and on a saturated purple ground the pattern reads as tonal shift rather than as flat shadow, the recesses darkening while the brushed square tops hold the colour. White gold applied hour-markers sit above it, with the pair at twelve set with diamonds so that the top of the dial carries a small concentration of light and the rest does not. Royal Oak hands complete the dial, unset and in white gold, so nothing above the tapisserie competes with the pair of stones at twelve. The strap is purple alligator cut in the large square scale pattern, closing on a white gold AP folding clasp set with brilliant-cut diamonds, so the setting appears at exactly two places on the watch, at twelve and at the clasp, and nowhere in between. Running the strap in the dial colour rather than in a contrasting one keeps the purple continuous past the case and gives the reference its length on the wrist. The large square scale is also the coarser of the alligator patterns, which suits a 37 mm case better than a fine scale would, since a small watch on a finely patterned strap tends to read as busy.
The function set is hours, minutes, centre seconds and a date. Centre seconds keeps all three hands on a single axis rather than displacing the running seconds into a subdial, leaving the tapisserie field uninterrupted, which matters more on a coloured dial than on a neutral one because the colour is the reason to choose the watch. The date sits within the dial rather than at its edge, and against a saturated ground the printed numeral reads as the second-brightest element on the surface after the set markers. White gold markers against saturated purple give strong contrast, and the two set markers at twelve function as an orientation point as much as a decoration, since the eye finds them first and reads the rest of the dial from there.
The Royal Oak is the collection Audemars Piguet is built on, and this reference belongs to the 37 mm generation immediately preceding the anniversary one, at 9.8 mm rather than the 9.1 mm the later plain references reach. Within it the strap references run purple, rhodium and beige, each with two set markers at twelve and a set clasp, while the two bracelet references are paved throughout in white gold and in rose gold. The anniversary generation that followed reorganised the size around a plain reference, a diamond-set bezel reference and a separate programme of baguette-paved references in ten single coloured stones, none of which retains the date.
This reference suits a collector who wants colour rather than stones and is not persuaded by watches that offer both at once. The setting here is present but marginal, and the watch would be substantially the same object without it, which is the opposite of how the paved references in the same family work. Purple gives it an identity that neither the rhodium nor the beige version can claim, and the strap keeps the whole piece lighter and less formal than a bracelet reference of the same size. It appeals to someone who wants a Royal Oak that is recognisable by its dial across a room, and to someone who prefers the alligator to the integrated bracelet for how it wears rather than how it looks. It also suits a collector who wants a set bezel without a set dial, which within this generation is available only on the strap references.
