Singer Ed Sheeran spotted wearing a Audemars Piguet

At the ACM Awards, cameras caught Ed Sheeran backstage with a striking white ceramic Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar strapped to his wrist — a watch that, under closer inspection, turns out to be a one-of-one commission directly from Le Brassus. In a room full of custom guitars and stage outfits, it was arguably the most bespoke object present.

The watch is built on the Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar platform, powered by Audemars Piguet's Calibre 5134 — a 374-component self-winding perpetual calendar movement operating at 2.75 Hz (19,800 vph) with a 40-hour power reserve. The mechanism accounts for the irregular length of every month through 2100 without requiring manual date correction. The case measures 41mm and is rendered entirely in white ceramic, a material that AP has used sparingly precisely because its brittleness makes machining the eight-sided bezel and integrated bracelet links an engineering feat. The white Grande Tapisserie dial with contrasting black sub-registers for day, month, moon phase, and date gives the piece a bold, almost architectural dial layout that departs from the more common silver-on-silver presentation.

From a collector standpoint, the Pièce Unique designation is the summit of AP's bespoke programme. These are not production variants or limited series — they are singular commissions negotiated directly with the manufacture, often involving months of back-and-forth on materials, dial configuration, and finishing. White ceramic Royal Oak Perpetual Calendars have appeared at auction in extremely limited numbers, and those that carry a unique commission status command a significant premium over standard references purely on rarity grounds.

Sheeran has assembled a considered AP collection over the years, with Royal Oak references appearing repeatedly on his wrist across red carpets and tour stops. His preference skews toward technically complex pieces rather than purely aesthetic plays, which makes the perpetual calendar movement a logical centrepiece for his collection.

On the secondary market, standard ceramic Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar references trade well above retail. A Pièce Unique of this specification has no direct comparable — auction estimates would depend heavily on provenance documentation and AP atelier paperwork confirming its unique status, but a seven-figure outcome at a major house would not be surprising.