RECOMMENDED READING: This guy has zero regrets buying the Audemars Piguet CODE 11.59

Time+Tide

It’s fair to say at this point of 2019 that the CODE 11.59 collection from Audemars Piguet has been the most widely panned watch release of the year, if not recent years. It was in some ways a perfect storm of critical disapproval, poor PR and a pack mentality that got pretty nasty.

But pictures on Instagram tell only a tiny fraction of the story, and they’re certainly not a great way to judge a watch. Which is why, when we saw this collector review over on Deployant, we were intrigued. Christian Kretschmar picked up a black-dialled time-only piece after falling in love with it in real life.

I’m lucky to have a few very beautiful watches in my collection, of which some were made by Audemars Piguet. I find it hard to compete with the complexity and variety of finishes on the APs, so I mostly pick one of those to wear. Since the CODE is part of my collection, I always look for reasons to wear it. Being a rose gold dress watch, it might seem to be over the top for some occasions, but I find it quite versatile, even in a more casual setting.

Regardless of what you personally think, Christian’s take is definitely worth a read, and is a good reminder to reserve judgement until you’ve seen something in the real.