Watch Paparazzi

Rapper Stormzy spotted wearing Audemars Piguet

Stormzy, one of the UK's most decorated musicians and a consistent presence on the watch-spotting radar, was caught wearing the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Openworked Black Ceramic, reference 15416CE — reportedly among the very first examples to surface publicly in Britain. For a watch that had only just entered circulation through AP's tightly controlled distribution network, the sighting carried genuine collector weight.

The 15416CE is built around a 41 mm case and integrated bracelet rendered entirely in black ceramic, a material AP machines in-house using a sintering process that produces extraordinary hardness and scratch resistance. The dial — if you can call it that — is fully skeletonised, exposing the self-winding calibre 3132 beneath. That movement, a 3120 base with the openworking decoration applied on top, beats at 21,600 vph, offers 60 hours of power reserve, and is finished to the same chamfered and côtes-de-Genève standard you would expect on a solid-dialled Royal Oak. Executing that level of finishing on an openworked plate is considerably more labour-intensive, which explains much of the reference's position in the AP price hierarchy.

Among collectors, the 15416CE occupies a specific niche: it delivers the Royal Oak silhouette — Gerald Genta's 1972 masterpiece — without a single conventional dial surface to rely on, forcing the movement itself to carry all the visual drama. The all-ceramic construction adds a stealth aesthetic that reads differently from the steel or gold variants, appealing to collectors who want the pedigree without the ostentation. Allocation has remained tight since launch, keeping secondary-market premiums firmly above retail.

Stormzy's relationship with serious horology is well documented. The Croydon-born artist has been spotted in Patek Philippe and high-complication pieces before, but the 15416CE signals a deliberate step toward avant-garde haute horlogerie rather than trophy watches. Wearing one of the UK's first examples publicly places him squarely in the conversation around taste-making collectors, not simply celebrity buyers.

At UK list price of £73,200 — translating to approximately $91,000 USD at contemporaneous exchange rates — the Royal Oak Openworked Black Ceramic 15416CE was never an impulse purchase. On the grey market, demand from collectors unable to secure boutique access has historically pushed transaction prices well above that figure, making Stormzy's early acquisition all the more notable.