For Audemars Piguet, the Royal Oak is its greatest halo, and perhaps its greatest comfort zone. So when it launched an entirely new round collection, the Code 11.59, in 2019, the whole watch world buzzed with debate.

Why would a brand that succeeded on the Royal Oak risk making a completely different round watch? The answer is exactly this: it did not want to be trapped by its own most successful work. The Code 11.59 seems merely "a round watch," but hides a great deal of thought, a double-curved sapphire crystal, a complex middle-case structure, a subtle handling of light. It did stir controversy at launch, but the brand did not retreat; it refined and responded, generation by generation, and slowly made it stand.

What truly deserves admiration here is the courage to "leave the safe zone." When a person or a brand is already very successful at something, the greatest temptation is to stay there forever, repeating the formula already proven to work. But true creators know that endlessly repeating yourself is the same as ceasing to grow. To move forward, you must be willing to face the unknown, and even to accept doubt for a while.

A breakthrough is never comfortable. It means leaving the place where the applause is loudest for a new field where no one is clapping for you yet, and building from scratch. But it is exactly that restlessness that keeps a creator from being typecast, continually growing new possibilities.

What Zenz Twenty Studio believes in is that same creative spirit of "daring to step out of the safe zone": we are not content to repeat a formula we have already mastered, but willing, in every project, to try new angles and possibilities, like the Code 11.59, only by daring to leave the most comfortable place is there a chance to go further.

This article is sponsored by Zenz Twenty Studio and published on Watchgod.com. Learn more about Zenz Twenty Studio here