Watch Paparazzi

Footballer Karim Benzema spotted wearing Audemars Piguet

Karim Benzema, the Ballon d'Or-winning striker and one of football's most consistently elegant dressers, was recently spotted wearing the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar in white ceramic, reference 26579CB — a watch that demands as much respect on the wrist as Benzema commands on the pitch.

The Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar ref. 26579CB is built around a 41mm white ceramic case — a material notoriously difficult to machine into the Royal Oak's sharp, architecturally precise silhouette. The case and integrated bracelet are executed entirely in polished white ceramic, demanding tolerances that rival far more conventional materials. The dial is a deep blue Grande Tapisserie — AP's signature hand-guilloché pattern — with silver-toned subdials displaying the day, date, month, moon phase, and leap year indicator. Powering the watch is Calibre 5134, AP's self-winding perpetual calendar movement beating at 19,800 vph with a 40-hour power reserve. Critically, the perpetual calendar requires no manual correction until the year 2100.

First introduced in ceramic variants in the mid-2010s, the Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar has evolved into one of the most collector-serious references in the entire AP lineup. The white ceramic iteration is particularly scarce — ceramic in this colour is even harder to produce without micro-fractures or surface inconsistency than black or grey variants. The blue dial and white case combination gives the 26579CB a nautical, almost ethereal quality that separates it sharply from the more common steel or gold executions.

Benzema has long been known as a serious watch collector, with documented sightings spanning Richard Mille, Patek Philippe, and across the AP catalogue. His choice of the 26579CB reads as the decision of someone who understands watches, not just wears them. It sits at the intersection of haute horlogerie complication and avant-garde material technology.

At a UK list price of approximately £98,000, the Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar ref. 26579CB sits firmly in grand complication territory. On the secondary market, white ceramic AP Royal Oaks command significant premiums given their production complexity and limited availability — grey market values for this reference routinely exceed list price, reflecting genuine collector demand rather than speculative flipping.