Watch Paparazzi

Designer Karl Lagerfeld spotted wearing Audemars Piguet

A photograph of Karl Lagerfeld wearing what appears to be a stainless steel Audemars Piguet Royal Oak reference 5402 is a document as much as a sighting. Images of the Kaiser in anything other than his signature dark suits and fingerless gloves are rare; images of him wearing a watch with this level of horological significance are rarer still.

The Royal Oak ref. 5402 launched at the 1972 Basel Fair as a deliberate provocation. Gérald Genta's eight-sided bezel secured by exposed hexagonal screws, the integrated bracelet, and the hand-guilloché 'Grande Tapisserie' dial redefined what a steel sports watch could cost. The first Series A examples — roughly 1,000 pieces — carried the calibre 2121, a 3.05mm ultra-thin automatic movement descended from the Jaeger-LeCoultre 920, running at 19,800 vph with a 40-hour power reserve. Case diameter was a then-modest 39mm. Every detail was deliberate, and every detail has been studied to exhaustion by collectors since.

It is well documented that Lagerfeld owned a Series A Royal Oak with black PVD coating — a modification that speaks directly to his aesthetic: monochromatic, architectural, slightly aggressive. That watch appeared at Phillips and achieved approximately €900,000, though provenance certainty was not absolute. The photograph here raises a precise question: is this the same ref. 5402 before its PVD treatment, or did Lagerfeld's collection run to multiple examples of the reference? For a man who owned apartments full of books he never reread and cars he never drove, a duplicate Royal Oak is not implausible.

Lagerfeld's relationship with objects was curatorial rather than sentimental. That he gravitated toward the 5402 — a watch that was intellectually argumentative, historically loaded, and visually uncompromising — is entirely consistent with his documented taste. He wore things that had correct answers behind them.

On the current market, a genuine Series A Audemars Piguet Royal Oak ref. 5402 in honest, unmodified stainless steel trades in a wide range depending on dial condition, bracelet completeness, and documentation. Retail is long discontinued. Grey-market values for authenticated Series A examples have reached and exceeded $300,000 at major auction, with provenance to a figure of Lagerfeld's standing capable of pushing that figure significantly higher.