Welcome to Watches of the Week, where we’ll track the rarest, wildest, and most covetable watches spotted on celebrities.
Pharrell is clearly not of this planet. The man doesn’t age, and dresses like an evolved species sent here to be our benevolent intergalactic ruler. The rapper-producer-singer has the wristwear to prove it: a space-grade Richard Mille he made in collaboration with the luxury sports watch brand. The watch, released in November 2019, is the visualization of one of Pharrell’s dreams: it features an astronaut standing on Mars looking back down to earth. This isn’t the typical design you’d find on a $969,000, watch but that’s exactly why Pharrell gravitated (sorry) towards Richard Mille in the first place. He’s called RM’s watches “a breath of fresh air in a category that was stagnant.” Also this week, more Pandas, and Future has a citrus party on his wrist.
Pharrell has been a longtime fan of Richard Mille. He shouted the brand out on a song all the way back in 2006, and until the release of his own model, was frequently spotted wearing the RM25-01 made in collaboration with Sylvester Stallone. In the press release for this one, he called Richard Mille the “Timepiece Supreme Creator,” which about nails it: who else would release an astronaut-themed watch that still includes all the bells and whistles—it’s made out of a material the brand calls cermet, which combines ceramic and metal, and still manages to tuck a tourbillon below the spaceman—of a very serious timepiece?
Vitamin C deficiencies be gone! This lemony-orange version of the Datejust is the definition of sublime post-pandemic style. This watch was released in 2015 but feels like a long-simmering harbinger of what was to come. This year, versions of the Datejust and Day-Date are having more fun than ever. Like Future’s, a crop of Day-Dates set for release this year are bejeweled and spun out in party-starting colors. So, unsurprisingly, Future is right on trend.
Russell Westbrook never plays it by the book. If he wears a sweater, he’s going to need a gaping hole in the center. If he’s holding a basketball, he’s going to need a rim to destroy. Even the very traditional Rolex Datejust isn’t immune to Westbrook’s “Why Not?” mantra. While nearly every version of the Datejust has appeared on Rolex’s Jubilee bracelet, Westbrook traded that out for a navy leather strap with a yellow stripe just off-center. In this case, it’s hard to argue with the results of Westbrook’s off-roading: in the NBA, Datejusts are a dime a dozen, but none look like Russ’s.
Austin Rivers immediately made a statement after joining his new team, the Denver Nuggets. Not necessarily on the court, where he scored 5 points in his debut, but in the arena tunnel where he wore one of the hottest watches in existence. Audemars Piguet’s white ceramic Royal Oak seems to have its own gravity, drawing every top-shelf watch collector into its orbit: Kevin Hart has one, so does Trevor Noah, Virgil Abloh customized his, and Draymond Green calls it one of the best pieces in his collection. Just a murderer’s row of collectors who all agree that there’s something special about the already iconic Royal Oak in white ceramic.
In recent weeks, this black-and-white Daytona—the “Panda” dial—has popped up on the wrists of Giannis Antetokounmpo, Blake Griffin, and now Monte-Carlo Masters champion Stefanos Tsitsipas. I thought these things were supposed to be endangered?