Swiss Haute Horlogerie producer Audemars Piguet is completely happy to current its newest Code 11.59 by Audemars Piguet Selfwinding Flying Tourbillon enriched with a black onyx dial. The timepiece encompasses a stylised two-tone case design interweaving black ceramic with 18-carat white gold for a strong distinction. The watch’s mix of pure stone, valuable steel and high-tech ceramic furthers the gathering’s inventive expression. 

Black Onyx Pure Magnificence 

The brand new Code 11.59 by Audemars Piguet provides satisfaction of place to the black onyx dial, whose purity is highlighted by the absence of hour-markers. This stone dial has been crafted in collaboration with long-term companion Someco, an organization specialised in dial manufacturing since 1966 and situated in La Chaux-de-Fonds. Carved out of a single black onyx stone, the dial has then been minimize into a skinny disc, floor, sanded and polished to perfection earlier than being inserted into the dial’s pink-gold-toned brass base plate. Its polished ending confers it a chic shine, magnified by the watch’s double curved sapphire crystal. Every dial is exclusive, as every stone has its personal pure composition, texture and color and reacts in a different way to the manufacturing and ending operations.

The general minimalist design is enriched with pink gold accents, together with pink gold palms and a discreet pink-gold-toned minute monitor printed on the black lacquered inside bezel. The polished laser minimize pink gold “Audemars Piguet” signature has been utilized onto the dial with devoted legs particularly tailored to the stone’s thickness. Lastly, the flying tourbillon cage, encircled by a fragile pink-gold-toned thread, matching with the steadiness wheel pulsating inside, makes its rotations at 6 o’clock. For the primary time, the highest bridge of the flying tourbillon cage has been completed with black PVD in an echo to the dial’s color.

The black rubber-coated strap, completed with a textured motif, enhances the watch’s up to date look.

Two-Tone Case Aesthetic Mixing Black Ceramic And White Gold

The Selfwinding Flying Tourbillon is endowed with a recent two-tone case design. Whereas the bezel, lugs and caseback are crafted in 18-carat white gold, the octagonal case center is honed from black ceramic. First launched on the Code 11.59 by Audemars Piguet Selfwinding Chronograph in 2021, this two-tone case aesthetic makes its debut this 12 months on among the assortment’s sophisticated fashions. 

Mixing superior expertise and time-honoured custom, the case required complicated programming, devoted instruments and extremely specialised human skills for its industrialisation and the hand ending of its parts. Equally to the 2021 Code 11.59 by Audemars Piguet Selfwinding Chronograph, the ceramic case center has been crafted in collaboration with Bangerter, a Swiss family-owned firm specialised within the manufacturing of precision parts manufactured from superior ceramics, tungsten carbide and different tremendous laborious supplies. 

The manufacturing of the case center follows a fancy industrial stream. Zirconium Oxide (ZrO2) powder is mixed with binder content material, the composition of which stays the key of the corporate. This feedstock is given preliminary form on newest era 5-axis CNC machine expertise. After this primary machining course of, the binder is eliminated. The watch part obtains its hardness and ultimate color by sintering at roughly 1,400° C. The part is then laborious machined with high-precision diamond instruments earlier than being pre-polished and pre-satin-brushed. Finally, just like the gold parts, the ceramic case center is meticulously hand-finished with the Manufacture’s trademark alternation of satin brushing and polished chamfers, endowing the timepiece with a wealthy play of sunshine. The artisans’ ultimate problem is to achieve excellent alignment between the rounded and angular surfaces of the ceramic and gold parts, a process that may solely be achieved by hand.

Code 11.59 by Audemars Piguet Tourbillon Volant Automatique © Audemars Piguet

Selfwinding Flying Tourbillon Between Custom And Modernity

As earlier iterations, this new mannequin is powered by selfwinding Calibre 2950. Whereas the flying tourbillon made its look in 2018 within the Royal Oak Idea assortment, the Code 11.59 by Audemars Piguet first launched this prestigious mechanism coupled with a central rotor in 2019. Seen on the dial and thru the sapphire caseback, the flying tourbillon cage defies gravity by always rotating on itself whereas providing an unobstructed view of among the watch’s regulating parts. The flying tourbillon’s absence of bridges additionally furthers the dial’s minimalist aesthetic.

The timepiece’s sapphire caseback reveals the gathering’s devoted 22-carat pink gold oscillating weight and the refined ending adorning Calibre 2950, together with Côtes de Genève, traits tirés, snailing and round graining, amongst different strategies. 

A Legacy Of Stone Dials

Though rising within the late 18th century on pocket watches, mineral and gemstone dials had been not often used earlier than the appearance of wristwatches within the twentieth century as their smaller diameters made the manufacturing of delicate dials extra possible. 

Stone dials flourished at Audemars Piguet between the late Sixties and the Nineties at a time when wristwatches had been witnessing unparalleled expressive and vibrant creativity all through the trade. Timepieces showcased a large number of colors conferred by pure stones, amongst which tiger’s eye, lapis lazuli, aventurine, grossular garnet, mother-of-pearl, opal, ruby, amethyst and jasper. Black onyx was discovered among the many Manufacture’s providing throughout these many years and slowly made its manner within the Millenary and Royal Oak collections within the 2010s.