Virgil Abloh’s Patek Philippe Is Unlike Any Other on the Planet

Welcome to Watches of the Week, where we'll track the rarest, wildest, and most covetable watches spotted on celebrities.

Virgil Abloh famously employs what he calls the three-percent rule when he’s designing—take an object and tweak it three percent. And voila: you’ve got a hit. He takes a Nike sneaker and tears it down to the studs. When presented with an iconic chair, designed by Paul McCobb, he adds a single doorstop to one of its legs. And while most who look at a Patek Philippe watch see untouchable perfection, Abloh sees it as equally worthy of his design adjustments. Abloh’s watch, along with those belonging to an Avenger, an NFL draft pick, and Mark Walbergh, made this a banner week for celebrity timepieces.

Virgil Abloh’s Blacked-Out Patek Philippe Nautilus

Virgil Abloh’s watch is perfectly him: a classic design that he’s turned on its head to make it cooler and more modern. The watch made an appearance on Abloh’s Instagram Stories while he was warming up for a DJ set last weekend. The watch appears to be a completely blacked-out Patek Nautilus. Both Abloh’s camp and Patek Philippe declined to comment on how the watch was made, how many might exist, or how it came to the designer’s wrist—but chances are good this piece is one-of-one.

Chris Paul’s Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Selfwinding

Last week, Chris Paul’s teammate James Harden showed off a flashy Royal Oak Concept. Not to be outdone, CP3 arrived at the podium after closing out the Utah Jazz in a gentleman’s sweep on Wednesday wearing a classic 18-carat yellow gold Royal Oak. Typically, Royal Oaks come in stainless steel—it’s part of what made the watch so unique when it was introduced in the early ‘70s—so Paul’s gold version is extra special.

Robert Downey, Jr.’s Greubel Forsey Double Tourbillon Technique

If wrangling back control of all the Infinity Stones doesn’t work out for Robert Downey, Jr., he’ll still have a pretty epic jewelry collection to fall back on. The man’s been on a tear during this Avengers: Endgame press tour. Earlier this month he wore a De Bethune Tourbillon, and this week he showed off two more impressive pieces on the red carpet. The first is a Greubel Forsey Double Tourbillon Technique in black titanium that costs over half a million dollars ($560,000, to be exact). What I really like about RDJ’s watch rotation on this tour is that he’s wearing pieces that Tony Stark would really wear, or invent. They are watches I half-expect to shoot tiny rockets, or command an army of Iron Men. The same goes for the other watch he wore this week…

Downey, Jr.’s Urwerk 111C

Talk about a timepiece straight out of Stark Industries. The Urwerk 111C is a watch the same way a ray blaster is a gun: the term does an injustice to the 111C’s strange awesomeness. Instead of the old and fusty stuff typically found on a timepiece—a dial, say, or hands—Urwerk substitutes crazy spinning wheels. Plus, Downey might be up to something here: last time he wore a Urwerk while promoting a Marvel movie, he later sold the watch at auction for $150,000.

Ryan Reynolds’s Omega Speedmaster “Dark Side of the Moon”

The first and only man to voice a sassy Pikachu needs a watch used to accomplishing firsts. On Reynolds’s wrist is a Speedmaster "Dark Side of the Moon"—a watch made to celebrate the Apollo 8 astronauts who originally circled the moon and saw its pitch-dark half for the first time.

Mark Wahlberg’s Patek Philippe Aquanaut 5168G

Mark Wahlberg is already showing off the best-of-the-best from this year’s Basel festival. The actor paired Patek Philippe’s brand-new “khaki” Nautilus with Jordan Brand basketball shorts, a T-shirt promoting his own workout supplement brand, and a gnarly beard. But we’re not here to judge his outfit, or his grooming regimen—this is Watches of the Week.

Josh Allen’s IWC Portofino Hand-Wound Eight Days

Right after the Giants passed on pass rusher Josh Allen in favor of a mediocre quarterback prospect, which I’m extremely not mad about, the former Wildcat was drafted by the Jacksonville Jaguars. While holding up his new team’s jersey, Allen flashed his already-NFL-worthy watch: an IWC Portofino Hand-Wound Eight Days. We should hear a lot more from Allen in the coming years—and with his new NFL contract, the linebacker’s budding watch collection should get a lot bigger.

Style

It was big week for Pharrell and Uzi—and athletes like Rafael Nadal, James Harden, and Tiger Woods flexing impressive timepieces.

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