Singer Ed Sheeran spotted wearing a Audemars Piguet

When Stormzy brought Ed Sheeran out as a surprise guest during his Heavy Is the Head Tour at a London venue, the crowd focused on the music. Watch enthusiasts, however, had their eyes trained slightly lower — specifically on Sheeran's wrist, where an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar in white ceramic, reference 26579CB, was making a quiet but emphatic statement.

The 26579CB is among the most technically demanding pieces in Audemars Piguet's current catalogue. Housed in a 41mm white ceramic case — a material notorious for its difficulty in machining to Royal Oak's exacting tolerances — the watch runs on Calibre 5134, a self-winding movement featuring a perpetual calendar with instantaneous jumping date, day, month, and moon phase displays, along with a leap year indicator. The skeletonised construction leaves the architecture of the movement visible through the signature blue Grande Tapisserie patterned dial, with silver-toned subdials providing legibility against the openworked background. Water resistance is rated to 50 metres.

White ceramic Royal Oaks occupy a specific and coveted position in the AP collector community. While the black ceramic variants — including Stormzy's own 26585CE worn on the same night — tend to draw more aggressive secondary market attention, the white ceramic references are produced in even more constrained numbers and carry an almost contradictory elegance: a high-complication perpetual calendar rendered in a material more commonly associated with industrial engineering. Completing the perpetual calendar module in ceramic demands tolerances that took AP years to perfect, and the result remains a genuine manufacturing achievement.

Ed Sheeran is no stranger to serious horology. The Suffolk-born singer-songwriter has built a quiet but substantive watch collection over the years, with AP pieces appearing regularly on his wrist across public appearances and tour dates. Wearing the 26579CB in the context of a live concert — exposed to stage lights, sweat, and the general chaos of performance — reflects a collector comfortable enough with his pieces to actually use them.

At retail, the Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar 26579CB carries a list price in the region of $115,800. On the current grey market, however, comparable ceramic perpetual calendar references from AP have traded significantly above that figure, with demand from collectors and high-profile celebrity associations only compressing available supply further.