Baguette-cut blue sapphires are the rarest setting combination in this collection, and this reference is where the two least common decisions meet. Baguettes are rectangular stones with flat facets and long straight edges, so they produce broad flashes and hard lines rather than the scattered shimmer of brilliant cuts, and they are considerably harder to set because every stone must align with its neighbours or the run reads as crooked. Doing that in blue sapphire rather than diamond compounds it, since a coloured stone shows any variation in tone across a run that a colourless one would hide. The openworked white gold dial and the bezel are set this way. The case is 38.5 mm across and 11.6 mm thick, and it is no longer part of the current collection.
The case measures 38.5 mm across and 11.6 mm thick in white gold, slim for a tourbillon and the reason the reference is worn rather than displayed. White gold is the necessary metal here because it stays cool behind blue sapphires, where rose or yellow gold would have pushed the stones toward green and undone the colour entirely. The dial is openworked white gold set with baguette-cut blue sapphires, and openworking a dial that is also being set is a compounding problem rather than two separate ones, since each aperture cut for the mechanism removes metal that a stone could otherwise have been seated in. With baguettes that constraint bites harder than with brilliants. A brilliant can be placed almost anywhere a seat exists; a baguette has to sit in a straight run with its neighbours, so the openwork and the setting have to be designed against each other rather than in sequence. The bezel is set the same way, which is worth noting because it differs from the 26227 references alongside it, where the setting stops at the inner bezel. Carrying baguettes around the octagonal outer bezel means eight straight runs meeting at eight corners, and rectangular stones make those corners far less forgiving than round ones would. The hands are openworked white gold, skeletonised so they cross the mechanism without hiding it. The strap is hand-stitched light blue alligator in a large square scale with a white gold folding clasp set with baguette-cut blue sapphires, and a light blue rubber strap with a constellation decoration is supplied alongside. Light blue rather than the deeper blue used elsewhere in the group is a considered pairing, since a saturated strap would have competed with the sapphires for the same colour and a pale one lets them stay the darkest blue on the watch. The second strap matters practically as well as visually, because alligator with a set clasp keeps the reference formal while a textured rubber strap takes the identical watch somewhere far less careful. The clasp travels between them, so the sapphires go wherever the watch goes.
The movement carries a flying tourbillon and a power reserve display, with hours and minutes. A flying tourbillon has no bridge across the top of the rotating carriage and is supported from beneath, so the assembly turns apparently unsupported and stays visible from the dial side, which is why it belongs with an openworked dial. The two are a single decision rather than two: the dial is opened to show the tourbillon and the tourbillon is built flying so that what is shown is uninterrupted. The power reserve display is the practical complication, reporting how much running time remains before the watch stops. That matters more here than it would on an ordinary watch, because a tourbillon left to run down has to be restarted and reset rather than simply picked up, and the indicator is read against the mechanism itself rather than from a dedicated panel. There is no date, no chronograph and no seconds display, which on a dial that is both openworked and baguette-set is necessity rather than restraint.
Within the Royal Oak Concept collection this sits among the gem-set flying tourbillons at 38.5 mm, distinct from the large technical Concept references, which are 44 mm titanium watches carrying repeaters and chronographs and are read as engineering rather than as objects. The 26227 line alongside uses brilliant-cut stones and sets only the dial and inner bezel; the 26228 references use baguettes and take the setting out onto the bezel itself. That is the real division within the group, and it is a division of difficulty as much as of appearance. Within the 26228 references the choices are blue sapphires and diamonds in white gold, and blue sapphires in rose gold, so this is the coolest and most uniform of the three.
This reference is for a collector who understands why a baguette setting costs more than a brilliant one and wants the harder execution. That is a knowing purchase and the reference makes no attempt to be obvious about it, since from any distance it reads simply as a blue set watch. The straight-line geometry is also the reason the setting suits the Royal Oak case specifically. The case is built entirely from flat surfaces and eight corners, and baguettes repeat that logic where brilliants soften it. At 11.6 mm the watch still goes under a cuff, which is not true of most tourbillons. Now that the reference has left the catalogue the production is closed, and baguette-set coloured-stone references are made in the smallest numbers of anything in the collection. The buyer is someone who wants the most demanding version of a set watch that Audemars Piguet builds, in a colour, and is content that most people will not know what they are looking at.
