Messages: 36400 Location: NYC
Registered: May 2005
Long term with the AP Millenary 4101
Tue, 19 March 2013 06:11
After a lengthy turn with the Millenary 4101--a special thank you to AP--I'll suggest it just may be impossible to grasp the uniqueness of this watch.
If you're building a collection weighted in a common theme or aesthetic, you'll either have to accept the individuality of the 4101 or the watch simply won't find a place in the group. It has to stand alone, apart from anything else in your watch box.
How can you put it on the wrist and find a relatedness with anything else in your collection?
Guaranteed you won't even find its meaning until you put it on the wrist. Until then, it's a conceptual work of art.
Once on the wrist, it is an anatomical wonder, settling in as a part of you. And as large as the watch is, it's the first I've ever worn that never moves once I snap shut the deployant.
The Millenary is a tribute to classic architectural design, and as Chief Artistic Director Octavio Garcia says, it is the alliance of that architecture with haute horology.
A watch turned inside out.
Quite literally, this...
Becomes this...
A multi-layered, supremely finished landscape of historical homage and exposed vulnerability
The very life of the watch is in full view, and therefore Millenary time is isolated, tenuous, and inherently precious by design.
Just like the paths of the Colosseum, the 4101 gives the sensation of ventilated energy churning from below
Rising through a multi-layered network of stunning and varied finishing
To the surface, where both production and result are showcased.
We might expect a watch of this caliber to be reserved, but there is nothing sedate about the 4101.
It's in a visibly connected and perpetual operation.
Making it as much a sportive event as the Offshore.
AP set out to create a watch as bold as the original Royal Oak, and this piece is simply incomparable.
Even the skeletonized Royal Oak shares an unmistakable relatedness to other Royal Oaks.
The watch is an absolute marvel, a watchmaker's fantasy, but still we see a watch.
This is the surprise of the 4101, in that it doesn't occur as a watch. The first sign are all of the comments it gathers. All of the stares. Even those completely unfamiliar with fine watchmaking are absolutely wowed by the 4101. Why? Because they don't see a watch. They see a pristine, energized architecture with a visible pulse.
Like these structures, the Millenary 4101 does not deny what it is. A timekeeper.
But unique in its design because its form and function are presented in a constant and perceptible balance.
Which ultimately find purpose only on the wrist.
A select group of watches will make you feel like a million bucks when you put them on.
The Millenary 4101 is different in that it makes you feel like one of a kind.
In a world of iconic reflection, and determined restraint, one of a kind is one hell of an achievement.
Howard - Moderator...Audemars Piguet & Jaeger-LeCoultre
- boa2