Available In The Shop: The Audemars Piguet End of Days

In 1997 AP upped the ruggedness of the Offshore while making it easier to wear by ditching its near half kilo steel bracelet for a double strap, made unbelievably enough from heavy duty ballistic Cordura, Kevlar and aramid, and a Velcro closure. If the aforementioned older generation gentility had revived from their fainting spell, this would send their panic-stricken hearts back into cardiac arrest. Because never in the world of haute de gamme watchmaking — a term often associated with AP, Patek Philippe and Vacheron Constantin, horology’s “Holy Trinity,” — had so lofty a brand deigned to invoke military codes. It was as shocking as your college daughter returning from her semester studying sculpture in Florence, knocked up and with an Italian husband named Fabrizio. But those who dared strap this divisive animal on their wrist were rewarded with a watch that could fit a much wider variety of wrists and with a fantastic level of comfort.

The 1999 End of Days took the “Velcro” strapped Offshore as its base but then upped the bad assitude to Spinal Tap Level 11. First of all, the steel watch was entirely coated black, using Physical Vapour Deposition. Now this may not seem radical today, but in this era, only tool type watches, Tag Heuers, Porsche Designs, and Panerai had gone to the dark side. For a rarified brand like AP to do it was, to quote the bald dude in The Princess Bride, “inconceivable.” The blacked-out case was backed up by a blacked-out dial featuring the brand’s signature tappiserie motif, white gold subdial surrounds and shocking high alert signal yellow hands and indexes. The Special Forces meets high luxury allure was cemented with the use of a black Kevlar, aramid, Velcro strap.