Watch Paparazzi

Footballer Giorgio Chiellini spotted wearing Audemars Piguet

Giorgio Chiellini made his return to Juventus following an ACL injury sustained the previous August, and the Italian defender marked the occasion wearing an Audemars Piguet CODE 11.59 in white gold with a blue lacquered dial — reference 15210BC. The sighting puts a spotlight on a watch that AP launched at SIHH 2019 as the manufacture's most significant new collection in decades.

The CODE 11.59 ref. 15210BC houses the in-house Calibre 4302, a self-winding movement with a 70-hour power reserve, running at 28,800 vph, and visible through a sapphire caseback. The case construction itself is the headline: Audemars Piguet built a three-part white gold case measuring 41mm, with an octagonal middle case sandwiched between two round components — a design language that deliberately creates tension between angular and circular geometries. The double-curved sapphire crystal is not a marketing detail; it required the manufacture to develop bespoke grinding technology, and no other brand currently produces a comparable single-piece curved crystal at this scale.

The CODE 11.59 had a complicated debut with collectors and press, many of whom felt it lacked the immediate visual identity of the Royal Oak. With hindsight, that criticism looks increasingly shallow. The collection has matured in the market, and the blue lacquered dial on the white gold reference is among the most refined executions in the lineup — the lacquer creates a depth that interacts directly with the curved crystal above it, shifting tone in different lighting conditions.

Chiellini has long been associated with understated luxury on and off the pitch. A Juventus and Azzurri stalwart known for his reading of the game rather than flamboyance, his choice of the CODE 11.59 rather than the more obvious Royal Oak reflects a collector sensibility — choosing the watch AP wants to be judged on in twenty years, not the one that already has a fifty-year legacy.

At retail, the white gold CODE 11.59 ref. 15210BC sits in the upper tier of the collection. On the secondary market, pricing has stabilised after initial post-launch softness, and the white gold blue dial configuration now attracts genuine collector interest as the CODE 11.59 narrative continues to strengthen.