A Double Take On The fake Audemars Piguet Millenary

This review is in two parts; the ladies’ Millenary 77247 is reviewed by Cara Barrett, HODINKEE Associate Editor, followed by the Millenary 4101, by Jack Forster, Managing Editor.

The whole idea of women’s watches and men’s watches is in flux nowadays. Many men prefer watches in what would have been considered feminine sizes not too long ago, as traditional men’s classic watch designs and sizes continue to soar in popularity; many knowledgeable female enthusiasts wear, say, great collectible sports replica watches uk for the same reason their male counterparts do: they want to wear a cool watch. Does the idea of a watch designed for a specific gender still make sense?

For this segment Jack and I will be reviewing the “men’s” and “women’s” version of the Millenary.

 

She Said: The Lady’s Millenary Model No. 77247 In Pink Gold And Set With Diamonds

​The Royal Oak is of course Audemars Piguet’s most iconic model but the Millenary has gradually become, if not iconic, at least immediately recognizable as an fake Audemars Piguet timepiece, in the years since it was introduced. With its oblong case and eccentric dials, this piece may not be the most immediately recognizable Audemars Piguet, but it is definitely interesting.

A little history on the Millenary – the idea for the Millenary case, with its horizontal ovoid shape, actually stemmed from an old case design made in 1951, but was soon forgotten as it was not as popular as other oval shaped cases. The design was resurrected in 1995 and was named the “Millenary” in honor of the impending third millennium. The watch was received, initially, with some hesitation by enthusiasts, but Audemars Piguet continued to grow the collection and experiment with subtle but important tweaks to the original design. The lugs became more pronounced, the numerals more exaggerated, and the dials became more asymmetrical. The Millenaries soon became one of the boldest collections produced by Audemars Piguet,

At first I was apprehensive about the ovoid case as I have never been a personal fan of the Millenary watches – they always seemed so clunky – however, after wearing this watch for a couple of hours I have to say I was seriously impressed. The brushed and polished 18k pink gold case is 39.5 mm in width. It sits very comfortably on my wrist and has just enough weight to give it some true meaning without weighing your wrist down. The stepped lugs and bezel are artfully set with 116 brilliant-cut diamonds of varying sizes to give it a more stardust look and although it may be too sparkly for everyday wear, the sportiness of the case helps keep it from it being too frivolous.

One thing that I really love about the new caliber 5201 manual-winding movement is that it is just that – manual. Audemars Piguet is not afraid to make “women’s watches” with a beautifully finished, high grand hand-wound movement (the larger Millenary Jack reviews has a self-winding movement with a gold rotor, by contrast) and there’s an impressive 54 hour power reserve. Another thing that I love is that the watch is skeletonized and you can see the movement at work. The movement is a good fit to the size of the case and the design overall is balanced very nicely – all design elements are well proportioned with respect to each other as well as to the watch as a whole.

In general, I was extremely happy with this watch. It was elegant and comfortable. My only request from Audemars Piguet would be to make the 39.5 mm case in stainless steel (no diamonds) as I think it would make the watch a bit more versatile, and allow it to be worn as an everyday watch.

The retail for this watch is $28,400, which, given the maker, quality of the watch, and the movement, is not totally crazy for this piece.

Case: 18k pink gold and diamond (116 diamonds) Dial: Mother-of-Pearl Movement: Caliber 5201 manual-winding movement, 19 jewels, 157 parts Power Reserve: 54 hours Functions: Hours, minutes, and subsidiary seconds

He Said: The Men’s Millenary Model No. 4101 In Pink Gold

The Millenary 4101 is, to the extent that there is such a thing, the entry-level model in the Millenary line. Some of the most memorable Millenary models in Audemars Piguet’s recent history have been complicated watches, though the oval case shape has been around since the mid-1990s and has been the basis for a really wide range of both men’s and women’s timepieces – everything from time-only to extremely high complications.

Though it’s true that the Royal Oak and Offshore cast a long shadow, it’s also true that Audemars Piguet has managed to make the Millenary line not only strongly identified with the firm, but also a platform for introducing or showcasing some of its most impressive achievements. It says something about AP’s own perspective on the Millenary that it was the watch the company chose in 2006 as the stage on which to present its direct impulse, AP escapement (in the absurdly beautiful Cabinet Piece No. 5, and more recently, in the Millenary Minute Repeater) and its new calendar complication, the Quadriennium. (The Quadriennium is a sort of demi-perpetual calendar; it automatically corrects the date for all months, including February, but does need to be adjusted manually on the 29th of February in a Leap Year.)

The 4101, however, is the Millenary at its most unadorned, which means that it’s a chance to really see how well the design stands on its own merits (and, of course, to evaluate how well the choices made for this specific model jell into a satisfying watch, or not).

By the numbers, the model we got our hands on pour les hommes is surprisingly wide, at 47mm – I say “surprisingly” because it definitely does not feel like a 47 mm watch. On the wrist, it has visual punch, sure, but for the size it’s pretty darned nimble on its feet. Thickness is 13 mm, and the movement inside is the Audemars Piguet shaped automatic caliber 4101, which bears a definite resemblance to the AP caliber 3120 (from which I presume it derives). One notable difference between the two movements, however, is that in 4101 the movement’s been partly inverted: the balance, pallet fork, and escape wheel are on the dial side (as they are in the women’s model Cara looked at) and this was done for a reason: to bring the balance closer to the plane of the dial and make it a part of the overall composition.

That reason is part and parcel of the real raison d’être of the Millenary 4101, which is that it’s a pretty sophisticated exercise in design – an exploration of how much can be done with the basic elements of a time-only, self-winding watch. The 4101 is all about exploiting the visual potential of an oval frame – something that really sets the Millenary watches in general apart, not only from other Audemars Piguet watches, but from most other watches, period. The symmetry of the oval is broken up by the placement of the main dial but balanced – in an asymmetrical and therefore very dynamic fashion – by the placement of the balance, and by the horizontality of the balance bridge, which flows into the three screws for the mainplate, top and bottom.

Far left, the opening in the plate adds a much needed dose of negative space to the mix, and the it’s echoed by the black dial for the sub-seconds. That dial establishes the upper plane of the design, and the lower depths (to get a little purple) are lit up by the train jewels – the design, therefore, is not merely deployed across two dimensions, but has a great deal of subtle but definite depth as well.

There is actually a great deal more that could be said about the design – the way the different surfaces reflect is worth a story in itself, and this can look almost like a different watch entirely depending on the angle at which it’s hit by the light – but the take-home for me is that this is a very, very sophisticated exercise in horological design. It’s not going to be everybody’s brand of vodka, for sure, but I think Audemars Piguet deserves a lot of credit for sticking with what commercially is an extremely challenging design and after some early designs that spoke more to the struggle of coping with it than anything else, they’ve hit on a way to make a watch in an oval case that makes you wonder, not why anyone would try, but why more people aren’t doing it this well.

The Millenary 4101 in pink gold: $40,300. Case, 47mm x 13mm; pink gold, water resistance 20m. Dial, anthracite and silver toned dial, off centered disk, black small seconds counter, pink gold applied Roman numerals and hands. Strap, hand-stitched brown alligator with 18k pink gold AP folding clase.

 

Conclusion

The last question, since it’s come up quite a bit on HODINKEE lately, is to what extent does it make sense to call either of these a men’s watch or a woman’s watch. I think it’s fairly clear that in general, it’s often obvious that a brand, and/or its designers, have a specific gender in mind when they create a certain watch. It’s also clear that there are certain design elements which together tend to suggest that – smaller size, diamond bezel, use of mother of pearl or other dial material, conventionally feminine (whatever that means) design motifs (a woman friend once posted, irritably, on Facebook, “why do women’s watches always have to have flowers and insects and crap on them?”).

I think it’s also fairly clear, though, that a good design is a good design, and the appeal of good design isn’t gendered. (The 4101 I reviewed, for instance, would look just fine on the wrist of any woman who wanted to wear it, unless she was just plain uncomfortable with the size, which is not a gender-specific issue.) And I think it’s transparently obvious that a man can wear a quote unquote “ladies’ watch” if he wants (particularly with respect to size, as the preference for classic 32-38 mm watches continues to build) and likewise there’s absolutely no reason a woman can’t wear what would traditionally have been considered a man’s watch if she wants. Tradition is a sword that cuts both ways in watchmaking – it’s a source of great pride to brands that express it, but it can also hinder innovation in design and reflect outmoded values and perspectives. It’s been true for a long time now that traditionally feminine expressions of style (whatever that means!) are a choice, not a default norm, and that perspective is long overdue in how we look at gender and how watches are worn, and who wears them.