Welcome to Watches of the Week, where we’ll track the rarest, wildest, and most covetable watches spotted on celebrities.
Brad Pitt went on an all-time red carpet heater last year. To promote Bullet Train, he enlisted and collaborated with designer Haans Nicholas Mott on a range of beguiling and exciting custom clothes: linen suits and skirts made in funky colors like plum and cantaloupe. Unfortunately, for watch enthusiasts worldwide, these looks hardly ever featured timepieces. Now, Pitt seems to be making up for that in a big way. This week, he was seen wearing the Vacheron Constantin 222, a new release—and one of my absolute favorites—from 2022.
This isn’t the only tasty watch treat Pitt has given us this month, either. The actor wore what appears to be a Patek Philippe World Timer to the Golden Globes. (The Italian Watch Spotter believes it to be a gorgeous-looking white-gold Patek Philippe reference 5130/1G—I hope they’re right!). And although he’s been seen in other brands recently, a representative for Breitling confirms Pitt’s still an ambassador and is wearing one of its pieces in Wolves, his upcoming movie with George Clooney.
If you’re starting to experiment with collecting other watches, though, the 222 is a no-brainer. The watch originally made its debut all the way back in 1977, as part of the wave of luxury sport watches that included the Patek Philippe Nautilus and Audemars Piguet Royal Oak. The world might not have been ready for the 222 when it first came out: only 1,700 or so were made for men before they went out of production in 1985. Of course, that only made the watch that much rarer and more desirable over the years. Since bringing it back at last year’s Watches & Wonders tradeshow, where nearly every major watchmaker announces its new pieces, the 222 has been a favorite among celebrities like Michael B. Jordan and Jeremy Allen White. Now, Pitt is joining the party, too.
Is there a more all-purpose watch in the world than the Omega Speedmaster? Need a piece to help pioneering astronauts land on the moon? That’s a job for the Speedmaster! Want a watch that’ll look great on the red carpet while promoting the third and final installment of a franchise about male strippers? Yeah, the Speedmaster will work for that, too. At the Magic Mike’s Last Dance premiere, Tatum wore a luxury version of the Moonwatch with a hunter-green dial.
It’s only January, but I doubt we’ll see many cooler watch sightings than this one all year. Bad Bunny showed up to a Lakers game this week wearing a very rare, very different, very cool vintage “ladies” Patek Philippe. It’s not Bad Bunny’s first vintage ladies Patek, either: he wore a pretty Ellipse in a shoot with this very magazine last spring. (Catch the always-promising “Watch, his own” credit!) This image of Bad Bunny and his Patek spread like one of his viral hits on the watch internet—first on Dimepiece, before it eventually made its way into a recent talk at the The Miami Beach Antique Show from Patek Philippe expert and Collectability founder John Reardon. Reardon credits the resurgence of ‘90s style and the neo-vintage watch movement, which is bringing plenty of underappreciated watches into the spotlight, for Bad Bunny’s choice.
Schwarzenegger’s beefy forearms make this normal-on-any-other-wrist GMT look downright tiny. Nevertheless, this gold GMT has remained a favorite of Arnie’s over the decades. Watch spotter Nick Gould dug up photos of Schwarzenegger wearing this watch 46 years ago, all the way back in 1977. Unlike muscled-up action stars, the GMT hardly ages!
If the song “Happy” were a watch, this is what it would look like. This Richard Mille is a testament to just going for it. And while it looks sugary and fun, no expense was spared. The sweet flamingo is made in red gold and gold is used for every element of the cocktail—I’d like to see a mixologist do that!—and even the spines on the cactus. Of course, the massive smiley face centerpiece is made of gold, too. Fun like this doesn’t come cheap, either: the retail price of the RM 88 is $1,200,000.