Welcome to Watches of the Week, where we’ll track the rarest, wildest, and most covetable watches spotted on celebrities.
Drake got a new watch and unlike the last one that made headlines this one is not rated NC-17 and does not require the bleeping of any bad words. It is simply a very good watch: a Patek Philippe Aquanaut with a 30-minute chronograph feature and a funky-for-Patek radiant orange rubber strap. The watch made its debut early last year, an orange-shaded olive branch to a young generation of watch collectors—and multi-platinum recording artists, apparently. Like this watch’s sporty cousin, the Nautilus, it’s not possible to just walk into a Patek Philippe and buy an Aquanaut. It appears that Drake got his from his longtime jeweler Dave Bling, who posted a photo of the pair and the new watch. Prices for the orange-strapped version of the piece are selling for close to $100,000 on the secondary market, almost double what it would be at retail were it available. Also this week: big watch on big man, a new customized-for-a-designer piece, and Bernie Sanders!
Drake’s Patek Philippe Aquanaut
Drake’s compiling a greatest-hits compilation of watches. He dabbles in Richard Mille but it’s his Pateks that really standout. To the Euphoria red carpet premiere he wore the brand’s 5740–one of the most coveted Nautilus references. To a Raptors game, he strapped on an 18-carat gold Nautilus. And last month he showed off yet another Patek Nautilus but with a Tiffany & Co.-signed dial (meaning the dial is stamped with a little Tiffany’s logo). It’s a little detail but one that watch devotees go absolutely nice for what for. This new Aquanaut is just another piece in a budding collection.
Dwayne the Rock Johnson’s IWC Ingenieur Automatic
The clothes in the Rock’s new movie Hobbs and Shaw are, in part, designed for the daring future of hand-to-hand combat by visionary tech god Errolson Hugh of Acronym. They are the sort of duds you need to defeat the self-anointed “black Superman” played by Idris Elba. The IWC Ingenieur, on the other hand, is the absolute classic watch a massive movie star like the Rock needs while going in to do battle with Good Morning America hosts. Two sides of the same coin really.
Matthew Williams’s Customized Audemars Piguet Royal Oak
Alyx designer Matthew Williams showed off this customized blacked-out Audemars Piguet this week on Instagram. Williams went to the same shop that worked on Virgil Abloh’s similarly all-black Patek Philippe Nautilus, MAD Paris. In addition to the black-holing of the watch, the full brand name—1017 ALYX 9SM—was inscribed above the 6-o-clock marker.
Michael B Jordan’s Piaget Altiplano
Jordan’s Altiplano is Piaget’s flagship model when it comes to showing off the brand’s technical abilities. Versions of the Altiplano have pushed how thin an automatic watch can really be and are used as a showcase for Piaget’s advances in what it calls “micromechanics.” That’s really what it sounds like: itsy-bitsy parts powering the piece’s ability to keep time. Jordan’s model could not be simpler: thin white-gold bezel and a clean white dial free of numerals around the edge.
Jonathan “Foodgod” Cheban’s Audemars Piguet Royal Oak
Foodgod, Jonathan Cheban, Kardashian flunky. Whatever you want to call him, there’s no denying his watch: an out-of-production Royal Oak chronograph made of 18-carat gold and a slick contrasting white dial. The simple numerals on the subdials are a nice chill element relative to the rest of Cheban’s bussed-out Royal Oak, too.
Bernie Sanders’s Citizen Eco-Drive
Blogged this week about the way this field of democratic presidential hopefuls are using fashion to signal their messages. Andrew Yang is the unbuttoned, no-tie guy from the tech world with the big ideas that go hand-in-hand with that industry. Meanwhile, Bernie’s watch is befitting everyone’s favorite grumpy socialist. The Citizen’s Eco Drive is without flash or sparkle but it gets the job done—and it’s on sale at Amazon right now for only $285.
Article written by Cam Wolf #GQ
