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Rapper Timati spotted wearing Audemars Piguet

Russian rap mogul and Black Star label founder Timati was recently spotted wearing one of Audemars Piguet's most technically ambitious vintage references — the Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar Open-Worked in 18K yellow gold, Ref. 25829OR. The sighting underscores a growing appetite among Russian entertainment figures for serious, complication-heavy horology rather than purely name-recognition pieces.

The Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar Open-Worked Ref. 25829OR is built around calibre 2120/2802, a movement that pairs AP's ultra-thin automatic 2120 base with the 2802 perpetual calendar module. At just over 4mm thick for the base movement, it remains one of the slimmest automatic perpetual calendar movements ever made. The skeletonized execution removes all non-essential bridges and plates, exposing the perpetual calendar's intricate lever and cam system for the day, date, month, and moon phase displays — a display of both mechanical confidence and finishing discipline. The 39mm yellow gold case sits on the signature Royal Oak integrated bracelet, with the distinctive "Grande Tapisserie" pattern now replaced by the open dial architecture itself as the visual centrepiece.

Ref. 25829OR was produced in relatively small numbers across the late 1990s and into the early 2000s, a period when Audemars Piguet was steadily expanding the Royal Oak's complication repertoire before the line achieved its current stratospheric collector status. Today, examples in yellow gold with the open-worked dial occupy a particularly desirable niche — the combination of warm gold, skeletonization, and perpetual calendar in a single Royal Oak package is difficult to replicate and impossible to manufacture new at this specification.

Timati, whose real name is Timur Yunusov, has built one of Russia's most commercially successful hip-hop brands through Black Star Inc., encompassing music, fashion, and hospitality. His watch selections have consistently leaned toward statement-level timepieces, and the Ref. 25829OR fits that pattern — it reads as understated to the uninitiated while communicating deep knowledge to collectors.

On the secondary market, the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar Open-Worked Ref. 25829OR commands significant premiums over its original retail positioning, with grey-market examples in strong condition trading well into six figures depending on service history and originality of the bracelet. The reference remains a benchmark for pre-2010 AP collecting.