A New AP Royal Oak Offshore Chronograph 42mm Black Ceramic with a Méga Tapisserie Dial

About two years ago, Audemars Piguet released an absolutely stunning watch, the black ceramic Royal Oak Offshore Chronograph, a.k.a the Black Beast. A monochromatic and high-tech take on one of the most important watches of the brand – at least in modern days – this watch merged the classic look of the 1993 ROO with contemporaryrn, stealthy-looking case and bracelet. As part of the new models released by AP for its 2025 collection, is this watch – also a reference 26238CE – with an even blacker look. And while initially we decided to call it the “Blacker-than-Black Beast”, things are actually a bit more complex. 

What is an AP Beast? Well, we have to travel back to the early 1990s, when the brand was struggling to sell its classic luxury sports watch, the Royal Oak Jumbo – these were very different times. To boost sales and gain attention, Stephen Urquhart, then AP’s Chairman, turned to an external designer – Emmanuel Gueit, then a fresh new employee – to rejuvenate the overall concept of the RO and to create a shocking new product again. “Something young men would want to wear,” Gueit explained. The result was the 1993 Royal Oak Offshore Chronograph 25721ST, a watch immediately nicknamed The Beast – which, indeed, it was back in the day.

The basics of the inaugural ROO are simple: a 42mm automatic chronograph in steel with an octagonal bezel lined with a rubber gasket – a sportier, beefier evolution of the 1972 Royal Oak 5402ST, if you will – a blue petite tapisserie dial and an integrated steel bracelet. There was a tachymeter scale on the dial’s outer flange, and the chronograph counters were positioned in a 12-6-9 layout, with a round date window at 3 o’clock under a magnifier. The Beast returned in a technically modernized but visually faithful re-edition in 2021 under the reference 26238ST – a watch that’s now part of the permanent collection and that shares all the emblematic design elements of the original model yet powered by a modern in-house and integrated chronograph movement.

In 2023, Audemars Piguet presented the reference 26238CE, a black ceramic evolution of the classic Royal Oak Offshore chronograph. Again, all the classic traits – petite tapisserie pattern, classic bathtub ROO handset, identical design of the sub-dials (slight difference on the sub-counters position, though) and round magnifier over the date – were kept, just now housed in a watch entirely made of black ceramic, bracelet included. For 2025, we have a new version of the ROO Chronograph 42mm 26238CE, but this time with a different dial. Our first reaction with Frank, our founder, was to call it the Ultra-Black Beast or the Blacker-than-Black Beast. Indeed, a quick look makes you think that all the white elements (scales, printings, lume, markers and hands) of the Black Beast have been darkened to give it a 100% monochromatic look…

Well, this is partially true, but we decided (quite arbitrarily, I agree) that this new ROO Chrono, as cool as it looks, cannot qualify as a Beast. Why? It lacks some of the defining elements of this watch: no petite tapisserie, no bathtub-shaped markers and hands, no circular magnified date, and a different design for the sub-dials. This new watch is a mix between the case, bracelet and movement of the Black Beast, with a modern, new generation Méga Tapisserie dial like the one found on the current 43mm ROO Chrono – and all the other modernly shaped elements found on the dial of these watches – bolder and more angular hands and applied markers, square date window, simpler tracks on the sub-dials and AP-only signature at 3 o’clock.

What also sets it apart is its full monochromatic look. Not only is the base of the dial – with its large squares connected by small crosses (a pretty cool pattern, to be honest) – black, but all the elements are either black or dark grey – such as the blackened gold hands and markers, and the tracks, printings and even the lume inserts. The result is a more modern, even sleeker look that, on the other hand, is colder than the classic Black Beast with its particular old-school charm dial.

The rest of this new Black-on-Black Royal Oak Offshore Chronograph is familiar. The 42mm x 15.3mm case is shared with the rest of the collection and is crafted entirely in black ceramic – for the case, the pushers, the crown guards, the bezel and most of the crown. Some contrasting elements have been kept, such as the rubber gasket between the case middle and the bezel, a titanium cap on the crown, the signature steel screws on the bezel and the caseback, which is made of titanium. The bracelet is also mostly made of black ceramic, with a titanium folding clasp.

Inside the case, the JLC base movement with a Dubois-Depraz chronograph module has been replaced with a modern in-house calibre, the 4404, an integrated automatic engine with a column wheel, a vertical clutch system and a flyback function. Running at a 4Hz frequency, it packs 70 hours of power reserve and is wound by a 22k gold oscillating weight.

This new Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore Selfwinding Chronograph 42mm Black-on-Black Ceramic (reference 26238CE.OO.1300CE.02) will be part of the permanent collection, and the price is EUR 86,600. For more details, please visit www.audemarspiguet.com.