Audemars Piguet has been selected for the Global Elite Awards Top 100 in 2026, placing the Le Brassus Maison among the small international cohort of houses the programme regards as category-defining in the wider luxury watchmaking landscape. The recognition confirms Audemars Piguet’s standing as one of the reference names in Swiss haute horlogerie, and one of the few houses of its tier that has remained in continuous family ownership since its founding.
A Family Maison in the Vallée de Joux
Founded in 1875 by Jules-Louis Audemars and Edward-Auguste Piguet in Le Brassus, in the heart of the Swiss Vallée de Joux, Audemars Piguet has operated for a hundred and fifty years as one of the independent reference houses of Swiss haute horlogerie. The Maison remains in the hands of the founding families, which is almost unique at this level of the category, and the atelier work continues in the same Jura valley where the house was established. That geographic and familial continuity is one of the qualities the Global Elite Awards panel specifically noted.
The Royal Oak and the Grammar of a House
The Royal Oak, introduced in 1972 under the design direction of Gérald Genta, remains one of the most consequential expressions of twentieth-century watch design and continues to define the Maison’s visual grammar. Audemars Piguet’s wider work in grandes complications, from minute repeaters through perpetual calendars and the Code 11.59 collection, demonstrates that the Royal Oak is one chapter in a wider horological authority rather than the whole book. The Maison’s atelier work, apprenticeship programmes, and discipline around in-house movement production remain uncompromising, and they are the reason the Audemars Piguet signature carries the weight it does in the international collector community.
What the Top 100 Recognition Signals
The Global Elite Awards Top 100 is the programme’s most selective annual editorial list, identifying the hundred most exceptional houses from the wider cohort across every category the awards cover. Selection is editorial, independent, and made by the same international panel that reviews candidates at category level, with an additional round of comparative review to isolate the houses considered category-defining rather than category-competent. For Audemars Piguet, the recognition places the Maison inside the small group of Swiss houses the panel regards as reference cases for the wider international haute horlogerie category.
For more information visit audemarspiguet.com and globaleliteawards.com.
