John Mayer Wore an Epic Royal Oak to Ring in 2024 at a Tokyo Cat Bar

If anyone has been pondering how best to make Anderson Cooper laugh uncontrollably on national television, they should take a page out of John Mayer’s book.

Cooper and close friend Andy Cohen made the (excellent) mistake of video chatting with the singer-songwriter live from a cat bar—“Cats in the Box,” for those who are curious—in Tokyo. Hot off a show at The Blue Note, Mayer provided perfect, dry-as-freshman-year-biology-class counterpoint to an exuberant Cohen, who couldn’t help but press him as to the watering hole’s raison d’être. “It’s a place where you can enjoy a drink or two and talk to cats,” explained Mayer. “It’s a cat bar…I don’t know how much more clear I can be about the objective of this place.”

Cooper, meanwhile, provided little more than an incessant laugh track as he tried to control himself at the sight of Mayer feeding catnip—in paste form—to several hungry felines. Meanwhile, the horologically eagle-eyed among us were mostly ignoring the cats in favor of Mayer’s wrist candy: a special-edition Royal Oak Selfwinding Flying Tourbillon from Audemars Piguet, a vaunted piece of haute horlogerie worth at least several truckloads of catnip paste.

While Mayer is associated with many a Rolex—the green-dialed, gold-cased Cosmograph Daytona ref. 116508 is widely known as the “John Mayer” at this point—as well as classics from Patek and IWC, he’s been an unwavering champion of Le Brassus lately. From Spider-Man tourbillons to all manner of Royal Oaks, the Grammy Award-winning guitarist and songwriter has a genuine love for the brand and its chart-topping wares.

The Royal Oak Selfwinding Flying Tourbillon ref. 26730BC.ZZ.1320BC.02 is special even by the standards of Mayer’s outstanding collection, however: Measuring 41mm in white gold, it features a bezel set with baguette-cut diamonds, plus a mesmerizing, smoked blue Grande Tapisserie dial with applied, diamond hour indices. Meanwhile, above 6 o’clock is a flying tourbillon, the device invented by genius watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet to counter the effects of gravity on pocket watch movements.

Powered by an automatic in-house movement from AP and paired to a matching, integrated white gold bracelet, this is a special version of an already special watch. Indeed, Gérald Genta’s famed 1972 design has become such a hot commodity over the past few years that it’s all but impossible to buy one—even a relatively simple, time-only version—at retail. But add in baguette-cut diamonds, plus a heavy-duty complication, plus white gold, plus Mayer’s star turn as cat whisperer par excellence, and it’s safe to say that this isn’t the type of Royal Oak one should expect to encounter at one’s local authorized dealer any time soon…

…especially now that the cat’s out of the bag. (Sorry.)

Originally Appeared on GQ