Audemars Piguet has, for 150 years now, pushed the boundaries and helped define the zeitgeist in watchmaking. The Swiss brand is a stalwart of Haute Horlogerie, the highest echelon of the field where gorgeously complex timepieces are crafted to the most exacting standards. In fact, Audemars Piguet remains to this day the oldest watchmaker still run by its founding families—a testament to the unyielding passion and know-how that drives this Manufacture.
The Manufacture has naturally introduced an impressive lineup of novelties to mark its 150th anniversary. What sets it apart is the refined, forward-looking approach it brings to designing timepieces for women. Audemars Piguet has a long history of miniaturising its métier and crafting beautiful, smaller watches for women—last year’s revival of the Royal Oak Mini, for example. Now, it’s speaking to women connoisseurs and collectors who long for the intricate complexity of Haute Horlogerie itself. This perspective is shaped by a slate of 38mm novelties across the Royal Oak and Code 11.59 by Audemars Piguet collections that brim with complexity in a more compact form.
A perpetual calendar, for instance, is a highly sophisticated Haute Horlogerie complication. Known in French as a quantième perpétuel and often shortened to QP, it is a feat of know-how typically reserved for the world of high watchmaking. The complication displays the days, dates and months; keeps track of the varying 28, 30 or 31 days in each month as well as the leap-year cycle that adds an extra day in February, the lunar phases and the weeks in a year; and, when set and kept wound, computes all this information for up to a century.
This year, Audemars Piguet has unveiled its contemporary take on the perpetual calendar complication with a new generation of calibres that fits into slender 38mm watches. The eye for modernity is not just limited to scale. Because they involve so many different indications, perpetual calendar wristwatches traditionally feature correctors on the sides of the case that call for special tools to adjust. Not so for this watchmaker, which has put ergonomics and ease of use at the centre of this generation of QP movements, making all adjustments and setting possible with just the crown.
A new line of 38mm Code 11.59 by Audemars Piguet Flying Tourbillon models also shines a light on the beauty of Haute Horlogerie. The tourbillon was invented in the 1800s as a way to counteract gravity’s effects on accuracy, but in more recent times has evolved to become a spectacular way to showcase the beating, moving heart of a timepiece. In Audemars Piguet’s hands, it has been designed so that this detail of horological engineering gains a new dimension as an aesthetic feature. The flying tourbillon on these Code 11.59 by Audemars Piguet watches is supported from the bottom so that its rotations appear almost free-floating from the dial-side view, and its cage is levelled with the dial to integrate seamlessly into the overall look of the watch.
This Code 11.59 by Audemars Piguet Flying Tourbillon model is cased in sumptuous sand gold. The 18-carat alloy is exclusive to the brand and has a unique earth-toned lustre that brightens and warms the skin. Combined with some signature details of the collection— airy openworked lugs, a curved sapphire crystal on the top, an utterly modern take on a concentric, guilloché dial—and you have something special. Complicated and compact, effortless and elegant, it’s watchmaking like this that makes Haute Horlogerie a thing of beauty.
Photography Mun Kong
Styling Nicholas See and Lance Aeron
Hair Christvian Wu
Make-up Victoria Hwang
Manicure Ann Lim
Photographer’s assistant Melvin Leong
Talent Rochelle Lai
Locations Special thanks to Átipico Room 15 and Bar Somma by chef-partner Mirko Febbrile
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