AP KAWS Companion, Lange 1, Freak Diamond Heart, Opus 7 & Ferdinand Berthoud FB3

The AP Royal Oak Concept KAWS Companion places a fully sculpted titanium Companion figure at the center of a 43 mm Royal Oak, requiring Audemars Piguet to redesign the time display entirely so the tourbillon at 6 o’clock could serve as the beating heart of the sculpture. The Lange 1 reference 101.001 in yellow gold is the original production model, the watch that redefined the brand at the Dresden Royal Palace on October 24, 1994, and set the standard for large outsize date displays. The Ulysse Nardin Freak Diamond Heart in platinum is a 2005 transitional piece in which the escapement wheels were made from synthetic diamonds, a material so difficult to manufacture at this scale that very few pieces exist. The Harry Winston Opus 7, designed by Andreas Strehler around the motto “it’s complicated to be simple,” replaces conventional hands with a single indicator that reveals hours, minutes and power reserve through sequential button presses. The Ferdinand Berthoud FB3 is limited to roughly 25 pieces annually, built around a cylindrical hairspring derived directly from 18th-century marine chronometers and inspired by a 1773 scientific book written by Ferdinand Berthoud himself.

Watches in This Episode

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is KAWS and what is the AP Royal Oak Concept Tourbillon KAWS Companion?

KAWS is the pseudonym of artist Brian Donnelly, best known for the Companion character, a figure with X-shaped eyes and a skull-like head that has become one of the most recognizable icons in contemporary art. The Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Concept Tourbillon KAWS Companion places a fully sculpted titanium Companion figure at the center of a 43 mm Royal Oak Concept case, pressing its hands and face against the sapphire crystal as if trapped inside the watch. Rather than printing artwork on a dial, Audemars Piguet redesigned the mechanics entirely so the sculpture could occupy the center, with the tourbillon positioned at 6 o’clock to represent the Companion’s beating heart. 250 pieces were produced.

What makes the AP Royal Oak Concept KAWS Companion mechanically unusual?

The KAWS Companion sculpture at the center of the dial dictated every engineering decision in the watch. Because a conventional center-mounted hand display would have obscured the sculpture, Audemars Piguet developed a peripheral time display where the hours and minutes rotate around the outer rim of the dial, leaving the center open. The tourbillon at 6 o’clock was placed deliberately to reference KAWS’s Dissected series, in which his characters reveal their internal anatomy, framing the beating complication as the heart of the figure. KAWS details are carried throughout the piece: the Royal Oak bezel screws carry X engravings, the ratchet wheel is skeletonized in the same X shape, and the Companion’s eyes are engraved directly into the titanium and filled with dark gray lacquer.

What is the A. Lange & Söhne Lange 1 reference 101.001?

The Lange 1 reference 101.001 in yellow gold is the original production model of the watch that relaunched A. Lange & Söhne on October 24, 1994, at the Dresden Royal Palace. Four watches were unveiled that evening, including the Saxonia, the Arkade and the Tourbillon Pour le Mérite, but the Lange 1 was the undisputed standout. Its oversize date display, inspired by a five-minute digital clock inside the Semper Opera House in Dresden, uses two separate discs to present the date in a format roughly three times more legible than a typical watch. Inside runs the manual caliber L901 with a German silver three-quarter plate, gold chatons set with blue screws and a hand-engraved balance cock unique to each piece, assembled twice by Lange before leaving the manufacture.

What is the significance of October 24, 1994 in Lange’s history?

October 24, 1994 marks the official relaunch of A. Lange & Söhne at the Dresden Royal Palace, ending more than 40 years of absence from the watch world. The brand was originally founded in 1845 by Ferdinand Adolph Lange in Glashütte, Germany, but the factory was destroyed after World War II and the company was nationalized by the East German government in 1948. Following the fall of the Berlin Wall, Walter Lange, great-grandson of the founder, partnered with watch industry executive Günter Blümlein to revive the brand. The four watches introduced that evening, led by the Lange 1, re-established both A. Lange & Söhne and the town of Glashütte as forces in the global high-end watch market.

What is the Ulysse Nardin Freak Diamond Heart?

The Ulysse Nardin Freak Diamond Heart is a 2005 variant of the Freak produced in platinum, in which the escapement wheels were made from synthetic diamonds rather than silicon. The original Freak, introduced in 2001, broke fundamental conventions: it has no dial, no hands and no crown, the entire movement rotates to tell time, and the bezel is used to set the watch. The Diamond Heart took the material experimentation further by using actual diamond components inside the escapement to eliminate friction and reduce the need for lubrication. Manufacturing diamond components at this precision and scale is exceptionally difficult, which is why very few pieces were ever produced.

Why does the Freak Diamond Heart matter in watchmaking history?

The Freak Diamond Heart occupies a specific transitional moment in the history of modern watch escapements. The original 2001 Freak introduced one of the first silicon escapements in a production wristwatch, and the Diamond Heart pushed that experimentation further by replacing silicon with synthetic diamond components entirely. The goal was to build an escapement requiring virtually no lubrication by exploiting diamond’s hardness and low friction, an ambition so technically demanding that production was extremely limited. Shortly after, Ulysse Nardin introduced the DiamondSil system, which coated silicon with diamond to combine the properties of both materials, and that technology remains in use across the watchmaking industry today.

What is the Harry Winston Opus series?

The Harry Winston Opus series was founded in 2001 by Max Büsser, then creative director at Harry Winston, around a single concept: instead of developing watches in-house, the brand would invite a different independent watchmaker each year to create an experimental limited-edition masterpiece. The series gave independent makers a global platform at a time when the industry rarely credited individual watchmakers by name. Notable participants included François-Paul Journe for Opus 1, Vianney Halter for Opus 3, Christophe Claret for Opus 4, and Felix Baumgartner and Martin Frei of Urwerk for Opus 5. After Büsser left Harry Winston to found MB&F, the series continued through Opus 14, with each edition defined by increasingly experimental mechanical concepts.

What is the Harry Winston Opus 7 and who designed it?

The Harry Winston Opus 7 was designed in 2007 by movement architect Andreas Strehler, whose guiding principle for the piece was “complicated to be simple.” The watch replaces all conventional hands with a single indicator operated by a crown and a trigger button: the first press shows the hours, the second shows the minutes, and the third shows the power reserve. The time cannot be read at a glance and requires direct interaction with the watch. 50 pieces were produced, and the Opus 7 is considered pivotal in the series because it was the first entry to succeed after Büsser’s departure, demonstrating that the Opus concept could continue without its founder.

What is the Chronométrie Ferdinand Berthoud FB3?

The Chronométrie Ferdinand Berthoud FB3 is a wristwatch produced in approximately 25 pieces per year by a brand revived in 2006 by Karl-Friedrich Scheufele, co-president of Chopard, and officially launched in 2015. The brand is named after 18th-century watchmaker Ferdinand Berthoud, whose published research on marine chronometer design, including the 1773 book featured in this episode, serves as the direct blueprint for the watch. The FB3’s defining complication is a cylindrical hairspring, a component historically found only in large marine chronometers, which rises vertically rather than lying flat and delivers extremely stable timekeeping at the cost of significant manufacturing difficulty. A port-hole window in the case exposes the regulating system as a direct visual reference to Berthoud’s original scientific instruments.