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Footballer Zlatan Ibrahimovic spotted wearing Audemars Piguet

Zlatan Ibrahimovic, the Swedish striker who built a career on spectacle and self-belief, was recently spotted wearing an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Openworked in black ceramic — reference 15416CE — a watch that commands as much attention on the wrist as its owner commands on a football pitch.

The Royal Oak 15416CE is built around Audemars Piguet's calibre 3132, an in-house self-winding skeleton movement beating at 21,600 vph with a 40-hour power reserve. The openworked construction strips the dial down to its architectural bones, exposing hand-bevelled bridges, circular-grained plates and blued screws through a 41mm black ceramic case. Ceramic at this scale — shaped and polished to the Royal Oak's exacting chamfered geometry — represents a genuine manufacturing challenge; the material's hardness makes it resistant to scratches but extraordinarily difficult to machine into the octagonal bezel's precise angles. The result is one of the most technically complex case executions in the entire Royal Oak catalogue.

From a collector standpoint, the 15416CE occupies a specific and highly coveted position. Black ceramic Royal Oaks are produced in far smaller volumes than their stainless steel or gold counterparts, and the openworked variant adds a second layer of scarcity. The reference sits at the intersection of sportswear aesthetics and haute horlogerie craft — a combination that resonates strongly with both serious collectors and the broader luxury market. Waiting lists at authorised dealers have historically stretched years, pushing buyers toward the grey market at significant premiums.

Ibrahimovic's affinity for high-horology statement pieces is well documented. The 15416CE suits his personal brand precisely: it is technically serious, visually aggressive, and unapologetically expensive. Wearing a watch this uncommon signals fluency in the language of collecting, not merely the ability to spend.

At an official list price of approximately $92,100, the Royal Oak Openworked Black Ceramic 15416CE is already a substantial acquisition. On the secondary market, however, the reference currently trades at roughly $423,000 — a premium of more than four and a half times retail that reflects genuine scarcity rather than speculative froth. For a watch this difficult to obtain through conventional channels, that gap is unlikely to narrow soon.