Maybe I should start my own YouTube channel: "Watch Hater" I will be the refreshing dose of spleen in that sea of vapid You Tube fan boys.
it would definitely help desaturate this dilemma - without a doubt.
Maybe I should start my own YouTube channel: "Watch Hater" I will be the refreshing dose of spleen in that sea of vapid You Tube fan boys.
Let me be your guest
Thanks BIONONE for the vote of confidence. Of course the Frankfurt AP boutique knows nothing of my involvement with their watches nor do I want them to: I am just another name on their mailing list that perhaps might one day buy a watch from them, a shot in the dark which they invite for champagne aperitifs to ogle their new frosted gold finishing techniques, or their new Code 11.59 catastrophe. I must say: I am increasingly feeling like an outsider in AP circles and I am trying to understand why that is because I used to like AP as my favorite brand up until 2014 or so. Unfortunately, it is also happening with Panerai as well for me: I actually dislike most everything that Panerai is releasing these days. What new releases inspire me? Ressence for high tech innovation, Rexhep Rexhepi for classic beauty, Linde Werdelin for the ornate luxury sports designs, FP Journe for audacious and sovereign watchmaking ... even Hermes for fashion elegance. Placed against those competitors, AP has fallen by the wayside, for me, in ALL categories: AP has become an arrogant fashion watch monstrosity which absolutely needs the viral Instagram overexposure and expensive brand ambassadors and payrolled bloggers (pace Hodinkee) in the lumbering and wasteful AP marketing/illusion machine to sell these poor designs to new money watch fashionistas. I will not say AP is the new Hublot, but it is like a horological pendant to the champagne industry: AP is the new Veuve Cliquot. Veuve Cliquot makes a mediocre biscuity/lemony champagne and needs to promote it through golf and tennis tournaments and expensive sommelier junkets, driving up the price for the normal consumer, who receives in return just an average champagne, while financing through each purchase those 8 course dinners in the castle in Rheims for the league of Michelin star restaurant beverage managers, etc. Look at the Bennahmias blonde trophy wife, look at the Bennhamias yacht in St. Tropez, listen to his arrogant interviews, register his claims to being on the pulse of the times with his surreally pretentious ad campaign for Code 11.59 with has-been basketball stars doing rap songs that herald the AP brand innovation and crazily choreographed cyborg dance troupes a la Super Bowl half time shows dancing to the beat of AP's daring. It is a frankly insane and desperately glitzy and superficial cover up trying to mask the fact that the actual watches AP are designing and selling for mega bucks these days are really not so good and a travesty towards their tradition and founder families.
I know everybody likes to be upbeat and give out alot of backslaps when it comes to expensive European luxury watches, but for me only maybe 5% of new watch designs are remotely attractive or "wearable": in this spectrum, the 15500 is horrible. I even gave AP the benefit of the doubt.. I went to the AP boutique in Frankfurt. I tried on the genuine 15500 in store. I hated the dial, I hated the hands (especially the seconds hand), I hated the mid-case, and I hated the movement. I told them they should fire their CEO. I actually said to them: "Get rid of Bennahmias." Of course, it is a matter of taste, and some people seem to like the 15500, but for me, I dislike this watch intensely. I have no hope for AP until they get rid of their current CEO. I will go even further: I do not understand how anyone with a liking for the previous Royal Oaks can, in all honesty, actually like the 15500 except as a vehicle for profit, an advantage for flippers being the bubbly market right now. Forget AP for now.
ZF get the black genuine watch, and JF get the blue one....wow!
As much as I'm a fan of the 15400, I saw a black dial for sale and it looks really good I must say.