The Double Balance Wheel Openworked is the reference where Audemars Piguet made its own architecture the subject of the dial. The mechanism is built around two balance assemblies sharing a single axis, a development the house introduced in 2016, and openworking the movement is what makes that visible: there is no dial in the conventional sense, only the skeletonised mechanism seen from the front with markers and hands mounted over it. On this reference the openworked surface is rhodium-toned and the applied hour-markers are rose gold, which is the detail that separates it from everything around it. A white gold case with rose gold markers is a deliberate mixing of metal tones that the collection generally avoids, and against a grey openworked ground the warm markers are the only colour anywhere on the watch.
The case is 37 mm across and 10 mm thick in white gold, with the octagonal bezel set with diamonds. The height is greater than the solid-dial references of the same size and generation carry, which is a consequence of the openworked construction rather than of the setting. Removing material from a movement does not make it thinner, because the bridges that remain still have to hold everything in place and are often made deeper to compensate for what has been cut away. The eight hexagonal screw positions survive the bezel setting and remain the fixed points the stones are arranged around. The dial is the mechanism itself, rhodium-toned and cut away so that the structure reads as depth rather than as surface, and this is the one Royal Oak configuration where the eye is looking through the watch rather than at it. The bezel setting adds a further layer of light immediately outside that, which is part of why the markers have to be warm. Rose gold applied hour-markers and Royal Oak hands sit above the openwork, and they are the only solid elements between the viewer and the mechanism, which is why their colour matters so much here: on a grey skeleton, white gold markers would have dissolved into the background. The bracelet is integrated white gold set with baguette-cut diamonds rather than brilliants, so the stones run as flat rectangular tables along the length rather than as scattered points, closing on an AP folding clasp. Baguettes on the bracelet and brilliants on the bezel is an unusual pairing, and it gives the two parts of the watch different optical behaviour, with the bezel scattering light in points and the bracelet returning it in flat planes as the wrist moves.
The function set is hours, minutes and centre seconds. There is no date, and the reason is structural rather than a matter of taste: a date mechanism requires a disc rotating beneath the dial, and an openworked watch has no dial to hide it under, so adding one would mean putting a solid element back into a construction designed to remove them. Centre seconds keeps the three hands on a single axis, which on an openworked watch matters more than usual, since a subdial would have required a solid disc to be reinstated in the middle of a construction built to remove them. Legibility on an openworked dial depends entirely on the markers and the hands, since the ground behind them is neither uniform in colour nor consistent in depth, and the rose gold markers are doing the work that a tapisserie dial would otherwise do.
The Royal Oak is the collection Audemars Piguet is built on, and this reference sits outside the standing 37 mm range of its generation, which runs from strap references with two set markers at twelve to fully paved bracelet references in white gold and rose gold. Those are all solid-dial watches with a date. This one is neither. The same openworked configuration is also offered on a black alligator strap with a diamond-set clasp, which is the direct sibling to this reference and the only alternative way to have it. Between the two, the setting is the variable and the watch itself is not, so the decision is about how far the diamonds should travel rather than about what is being bought.
This reference suits a collector who wants to see the mechanism and is not willing to give up the Royal Oak case to do it. Openworked watches are usually built on cases chosen to frame the movement, and this one is built on the most recognisable case in modern watchmaking instead, so the mechanism has to compete with the geometry around it rather than being displayed by it. The octagonal bezel, the exposed screws and the integrated bracelet all assert themselves whether or not there is a dial behind them, and an openworked movement has to hold its own against that. The diamond setting complicates that further, and whether the result reads as coherent or as crowded is the honest question to ask of it. It appeals to someone who already owns a solid-dial Royal Oak and wants a second that inverts it, and to someone who values the rose gold markers as the one warm decision in an otherwise entirely cool watch.
