How I, In My Infinite Wisdom, Would Tweak The Latest Audemars Piguet Code 11.59 Self-Winding Flying Tourbillon

Or as a friend of mine's grandmother used to say, "Look at you, who knows so much."

The Code 11.59 Flying Tourbilon Ref. 26396NB.OO.D002KB.01,

Today Audemars Piguet released five new versions of some complicated watches – including the Code 11.59 Self-Winding Tourbillon Chronograph, the Royal Oak Concept Flying Tourbillon GMT, and the Code 11.59 Flying Tourbillon Openworked. The one that was for me the most striking, however, was the least complicated: The new Code 11.59 Self-Winding Flying Tourbillon, which has an onyx dial and a white gold case with a ceramic case middle. That case middle, says AP, was made by Bangerter, a “ … a Swiss family-owned company specialised in the manufacturing of precision components made of advanced ceramics, tungsten carbide and other super hard materials.” Being after many years of luxury consumer journalism, specializing in watches, an inherently suspicious and cynical person, I looked into this and discovered that indeed, Bangerter AG is a Swiss company specializing in ceramic and tungsten carbide component fabrication, for whom the watch industry is a major client, and which is indeed a family-owned business since 1969.

(I give AP credit for the nod to their supplier – consumers and collectors have a tendency to value, or even overvalue the notion of complete vertical integration but of course every watch brand relies on a complex network of suppliers, and that’s been true for most of the history of Swiss watchmaking – the longest sentence in Marx’s Das Kapital happens to be a list of all the different component suppliers in Neuchâtel, believe it or not.)

Most collectors will probably be more interested in how the watch turned out than in the provenance of the case middle, although who knows – in an age where a server in a restaurant can’t put down bread and butter without telling you the type of wheat and yeast used in the bread and the name of the dairy cow who provided the milk, anything’s possible.

In any case, just going by press images, it looks to me like one of the more successful Code 11.59 designs assuming you accept the collection at all, which some people would apparently rather die than do. Anecdotally, it seems that Code does grow on people who get to see them – personally I’ve never felt inclined to go for the torches and pitchforks when it comes to Code, and the only thing I dislike about the collection taken as a whole is that try as I may, I still often accidentally type Code 11:59 instead of Code 11.59. Maybe the period is there instead of the colon to suggest the sense of teetering on the brink of a new day of design at Audemars Piguet … François-Henry Bennahmias would know.

While complications usually look inherently complicated, and while watch designers often go all out to make them look even more complicated than they are, the onyx dial Code 11.59 Selfwinding Tourbillon is comparatively restrained – to the point of being almost stark. The tourbillon is not, strictly speaking, a complication, but a regulating device but the point still stands. Previous versions of the Code 11.59 Selfwinding Tourbillon have been by no means floridly ornamented but there are still flourishes like aventurine dials, Arabic numerals at the quarters, conventional indexes (“index” is one of the rare English words with two correct plurals so don’t come at me about not using “indices”) and an outer chapter ring on the flange carrying minute numerals at five minute intervals.

Earlier version of the Code 11.59 Selfwinding Flying Tourbillon

The new onyx dial version dispenses with most of these elements and while I never met an aventurine dial I didn’t like, I think the onyx dial version is even more handsome – the reduction of the design to its essentials feels very purposeful and while the aventurine dial on earlier models is eye-catching, it has an overt romanticism which while attractive, doesn’t feel especially thematically connected to the tourbillon. On the other hand, with the onyx dial model the fact that the dial does not glitter really lets the tourbillon shine.

In fact, as an exercise in reductionist essentialism the watch works so well that I can’t help but think how cool it would have been if AP had taken the concept to its logical conclusion. Lose the AP logo – sacrilegious in this day of brand worship for its own sake, I know, but bear with me – and imagine you also take away the Arabics on the flange. What you would have left, is a very pure manifestation of the design codes of Code 11.59 – which would also be a powerful statement of confidence from AP in those codes – and you’d also have a tourbillon watch in which nothing distracts from a few inherently beautiful elements interacting with each other, in perfect harmony.

How do you read it without any sort of numerals? I don’t think that there is anything difficult about reading the time reasonably accurately even without numerals or indexes; you can easily estimate what o’clock it is within five minutes without them and the only challenge might be in setting the watch to within a minute’s resolution, although if you have this watch chances are you have something like a majordomo or chief of staff or indulgent parent who’s endowed you with a generous inheritance to worry about that sort of thing. Or at least a cell phone. The really bold move – now this may sound nuts, but again, bear with me – would be to move the tourbillon to the 12:00 position. There, it would stand in, at least at 12 noon, for the sun at midday, giving the watch a resplendently cosmic character.

Original Movado Museum watch, 1955, designed by Nathan George Horwitt

Oh sure, it would take some cojones to efface your own logo … but it’s just crazy enough to work.

The Code 11.59 Flying Tourbillon Selfwinding: case, white gold with ceramic case middle by Bangerter, 41mm x 11.8mm, double curved sapphire crystal in front and sapphire crystal casebook, 20M water resistant; onyx dial. Movement, self-winding flying tourbillon caliber 2950, 31.50mm x 6.19mm, 65 hour power reserve running in 27 jewels at 21,600 vph. The caliber has been deployed in both the Code 11.59 and Royal Oak collections. Not a limited edition. Price on request, boo.