Audemars Piguet is typically criticized as being a one-trick pony because of the iconic Royal Oak‘s outsized presence in its catalog, with three of the model’s 4 present collections consisting soley of several types of Royal Oaks. (Technically, there are 5 collections, however the fifth has simply two watches that had been launched over a five-year interval, neither of which continues to be obtainable.)
This criticism comes largely from a spot of affection. As one of many “Holy Trinity” of excessive Swiss watchmaking, AP has an illustrious back-catalog full of numerous covetable references that, sadly, don’t have any trendy equal.
However Audemars has quietly been addressing this frequent criticism recently by elevating its solely non-Royal Oak assortment, the Code 11.59. Whereas met with a lukewarm reception when it debuted in 2019, the road has been grown to be one thing of a darkish horse out there because of an ever-increasing steady of fascinating fashions. For instance, when AP unveiled its spectacular new perpetual calendar calibre earlier this yr, it did so with a Code 11.59 — not the Royal Oak (although that got here very shortly after).
Now, AP has as soon as once more turned to the Code 11.59 for a very cool creation. In actual fact, it’s most likely my favourite watch from the model this yr.
That’s no Royal Oak…Audemars Piguet
Star Energy
Buried within the Code 11.59 catalog is the Starwheel, a novel watch with a wandering hours complication. Any such complication consists of three discs (or different objects) on the dial, every with 4 numerals equally spaced aside. The discs are all in fixed incremental motion alongside the dial in order that, one after the other, they align with a stationary minute observe to inform the present time. Each time the hour modifications, the following disc strikes into place with the following hour able to go.
The Starwheel — which is a spectacular identify for such a watch, btw — encompasses a partially skeletonized outer case of white gold round an internal case in black ceramic, whereas its dial boasts a darkish blue aventurine backdrop for a trio of rotating black PVD aluminum discs that inform the hour towards a minute observe situated between 10 and a couple of.
