Welcome toWatches of the Week, where we'll track the rarest, wildest, and most covetable watches spotted on celebrities.
Leonardo DiCaprio doesn’t seem to be much of a Watch Guy. He’s happier
in a wrinkly T-shirt and cargo shorts, blasting through Manhattan on a Citibike. However, perhaps there is one watch with the power to convert him: the Patek Philippe Nautilus with a Tiffany-blue dial. Most people interested in watches probably know the story by now. Last year, Patek Philippe announced it was discontinuing the beloved 5711 Nautilus—the most simple and treasured of Nautilus models. The 5711 then took a victory lap throughout 2021, capping it off with a green face edition, announced in April, that has already sold for $376,000 at auction. No one could have seen the Tiffany-blue dial iteration coming, though. Before last year, the holy grail of Nautilus collecting was an edition stamped simply with a discrete Tiffany & Co. logo no bigger than a few millimeters. This new version, with its aquamarine dial, is so in-your-face and on the nose, it could have been customized for Drake. Also this week: Tom Holland throws not one but two GMTs into the rotation and Chris Paul shows off one of the best new Rolex pieces.
DiCaprio collects very few watches—years ago he was spotted in a Rolex Daytona and he wore a Tag Heuer Aquaracer before that—but clearly he knows how to pick them. This is undeniably the hottest watch to come out in quite some time, attracting major celebrity Watch Guys like Tiffany ambassador Jay-Z, who was the first to show the watch off in public, and LeBron James, who got something nice under the tree on Christmas Day. And, as part of its release, Patek sent one of the pieces to be auctioned off for charity. The retail price is $50,000, but someone was willing to fork over $6.5 million rather than take their chances with the waitlist. DiCaprio is in good company.
In 2020, Rolex released a new version of its all-time classic Submariner and a version of the watch with a green bezel. And yet the watches that keep making noise from that season are the Oyster Perpetuals with undeniably fun colored dials–a shade of blue reminiscent of a Tiffany box is particularly sought after, thanks to Patek Philippe’s collaboration with the jeweler. Chris Paul, who is known for his love of swanky Pateks, is switching things up with this coral-dial Oyster Perpetual.
Before I went out on paternity leave in December—please clap!—I anointed Tom Holland as the NGC, or Next Great Collector. Upon my return, I’m happy to see Holland living up to that title. He’s rolling out another classic Rolex—we know he also owns a Rolex Submariner with a green ceramic bezel (the Cermit) and the beloved Daytona—in the GMT-Master II. Looks like Spider-Man is wearing the black-and-blue model known as the Batman. (Thanks for the support, Tom!)
But one great watch alone does not make a NGC. Just a few days after wearing the Batman, Holland busted out another GMT: the black-and-brown model known as the Root Beer.
Even John Mayer’s watch makes sweet music. This edition of AP’s Royal Oak is the Minute Repeater Supersonnerie, a variation on the classic minute repeater—a function that chimes out the time. The difference? AP’s is super loud. There were only 20 of these watches produced. Naturally Mayer, a God-level watch collector, owns one.