Patek Philippe 5740G

Patek Philippe

Ref. 5740G

Watch n° 20 for number of VIPs spotted with this watch
Patek Philippe n° 5 for number of VIPs spotted with this watch
Number of VIPs spotted with this watch: 28
Number of total spotted: 28
Preferred VIP category: footballer (11 VIPs)
List price: £91,150
Market price: $515,000

The Patek Philippe 5740G-001 has built one of the more telling wearer lists in contemporary watchmaking. Footballers dominate — Lionel Messi, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Luka Modric, Paul Pogba, Fabio Cannavaro, Luke Shaw, Jesse Lingard, Jack Grealish, Mattia Perin and Miralem Pjanic have all been spotted with one on their wrist, suggesting the reference has become something of a status marker within the professional game at the highest level. Beyond football, the list extends across music (Ed Sheeran, Drake, DJ Khaled, Stormzy), acting (Mark Wahlberg), television (Trevor Noah), sport in other disciplines (Lewis Hamilton, Hardik Pandya), business (Bernard Arnault, Steven Zhang) and royalty (Joaan Bin Hamad Al Thani, Hassanal Bolkiah, Ammar bin Humaid Al Nuaimi, Abdul Mateen). That spread — from Premier League dressing rooms to ruling families to the Forbes list — points to a reference that carries weight across very different worlds, not just one subculture.

Availability has always been the defining conversation around the Patek Philippe 5740G-001. Produced in 18-carat white gold only, in comparatively small numbers, it sits behind years-long waitlists at authorised dealers, and many buyers never reach the front of the queue through official channels at all. Retail price sits in the region of $75,000–$80,000 depending on market, but on the secondary market the reference has traded consistently at two to three times that figure, sometimes higher at peak demand periods. The combination of a complicated movement — a perpetual calendar — housed inside the Nautilus sports-watch case created a category that had essentially no direct competitor when the watch launched, and that positioning has held.

Introduced in 2018, the 5740G-001 pairs Patek's in-house perpetual calendar calibre with the 40 mm Nautilus case in white gold, with a blue-grey dial. Bernard Arnault's well-documented ownership of the reference arguably did more than any marketing campaign to cement its profile among the business elite, while its repeated appearance on the wrists of Champions League footballers broadened its reach considerably.