Chris Hemsworth Rocked the Year’s Hottest Royal Oak

Chris Hemsworth knows a thing or two about the allure of a solid precious metal watch.

Having been seen in everything from an octagonal-bezel Bulgari Octo Finissimo to a platinum Rolex Day-Date, the actor recently sported one of the most talked-about models of the year—a gold Audemars Piguet Royal Oak made in collaboration with Givenchy and Alyx design director Matthew Williams.

A capsule collection of five references (including a pièce unique that was auctioned for charity), the partnership between the young designer and one of the biggest maisons on Earth is significant on several levels: As we’ve noted before, AP has long been open to these sorts of collaborations in a way that many other, more traditional watch brands often shy away from. Furthermore, the collab came on the heels of a MAD Paris-customized series of 34mm Royal Oak watches made for Alyx, Williams’s streetwear brand founded in Milan in 2015. The release, beloved by everyone from Lil Yachty to Kevin Durant, proved too hot for AP to ignore—rather than turn a cold shoulder, as other companies might have done, they went one step further.

Williams lent his signature brand of streetwear-influenced minimalism to the distinctly maximalist Royal Oak and Royal Oak Offshore: The collection, which consists of two Royal Oak models in 37mm and 41mm, plus two Royal Oak Offshore models in 42mm, spans both 18K yellow and white gold references. Marking the first time a collection has been developed across both model families simultaneously, it sees the designer stripping away extraneous ornamentation in favor of simple touches that nevertheless readily identify each watch: The dials feature the full name of Williams’s label, 1017 Alyx 9SM, plus the Audemars Piguet wordmark—and that’s it.

Hemsworth, for his part, seems to have gravitated to the Offshore chronograph in yellow gold, which he was spotted wearing while embracing Lewis Hamilton at the F1 Grand Prix in Abu Dhabi this week. This watch’s chronograph subdials have no numerical scales, making them difficult to use. But that’s not really the point here: Sure, it’s equipped with the in-house Audemars Piguet Calibre 4404 automatic movement with flyback functionality. Sure, it has the collection’s signature integrated bracelet in matching metal. Sure, it’s built like a tank. But horological bona fides aside, what you’re getting with a watch like this is first and foremost a horological objet d’art. Time-telling is just a bonus.

Produced in limited series and available for between $73,500 and $111,500, the AP x Alyx collab watches are largely the fare of superheroes and superstars—but they signal a playfulness on AP’s part that, quite frankly, more Swiss maisons could stand to embrace.

Originally Appeared on GQ