Audemars Piguet Code 11.59 Name Explained

By
Robert Farago
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24
1894

To promote the Audemars Piguet Code 11.59, the Swiss watchmaker purchased some expensive real estate: advertorials in Vogue and GQ. The byline-free puff pieces offered watch nerds and well-heeled fashion victims insight into the enigma that is AP’s nomenclature for its all-new “Code 11.59 by Audemars Piguet” line. So what’s it all about Alfie? . . .

Audemars Piguet’s new line, “Code 11.59 by Audemars Piguet” is named for a very specific instant in the creative process—the 11.59 moment. It’s a delicate moment to define but –

Hang about (mate). How can the “11.59 moment” refer to “a very specific instant” and yet be “delicate” (i.e. difficult) to define? If Audemars Piguet doesn’t know what the 11.59 moment is, who does?

Interior designer Sophie Ashby and her husband Charlie Casely-Hayford reckon 11.59 is the moment when you’ve got your proverbial ducks in a metaphorical row, just before you do something new. Ditto “Wife-and-husband” architects Zoe Chan Eayrs and Merlin Earys.

“You start to feel a sense of stillness and calm,” says Chan Eayrs of that project’s 11.59 moment, when the interior was ready to be revealed. “It’s where all of those puzzle pieces fall into place,” adds her husband.

Restaurateurs Braden Perkins and Laura Adrian put the icing on that cake.

They like to describe the 11.59 moment as a “rebirth,” their chance to complete a creative endeavor, before moving onto the next.

A wristwatch for creative types who are constantly reinventing themselves? It all sounds a bit exhausting to me (don’t ask me how I know). And has sweet FA to do with the Code 11.59’s design, as far as I can tell. Which is nothing if not nothing much.

It’s a shame Audemars Piguet’s marketeers aren’t Eric Clapton /J.J. Cale fans. If they were, they’d know that AFTER midnight is when you cause talk (and suspicion), give them an exhibition, find out what it is all about.

Code 11.59 by Audemars Piguet should have been Code 12.01. Given the watch’s reception, a Code 911 rebranding may be in order.

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