Watch Paparazzi

Television presenter Trevor Noah spotted wearing Audemars Piguet

Trevor Noah was recently caught on camera wearing one of the Royal Oak family's most technically serious and visually distinctive configurations — the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar in all-white ceramic, reference 26579CB.OO.1234CB.01. Against the white ceramic case and integrated bracelet, the deep blue Grande Tapisserie dial with silver-toned subdials creates a striking tonal contrast that rewards close attention without announcing itself loudly.

The Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar 26579CB is built around Audemars Piguet's in-house Calibre 5134, a self-winding movement operating at 2.75 Hz with a 40-hour power reserve. The perpetual calendar complication — displaying date, day, month, leap year, and moon phase — is programmed to require no manual date correction until March 2100. That level of mechanical foresight, packed into a 41mm case measuring just 9.5mm thick, represents a genuine feat of miniaturisation. The white ceramic case is forged from zirconium oxide, offering a Vickers hardness roughly four times greater than that of stainless steel, making scratches a practical non-issue.

Within the collector community, the all-ceramic Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar occupies a specific and respected niche. Ceramic Royal Oaks command serious attention because the material demands far more complex machining than steel or gold — achieving the signature brushed and polished surface finishing on ceramic requires proprietary techniques that AP has refined over years. The reference 26579CB, with its blue dial variant, is considered the most wearable and versatile of the ceramic Perpetual Calendar configurations, pairing easily across casual and formal contexts.

Noah's taste in watches has consistently leaned toward technically sophisticated, understated pieces rather than pure status signals — a sensibility the Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar in ceramic fits perfectly. The former Daily Show host, who navigated a decade of high-profile television before stepping down in 2022, has built a watch collection that reflects considered connoisseurship rather than reflexive luxury consumption.

Retailing in the UK at £91,500, the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar 26579CB carries a USD list price in the six-figure range. On the grey market, demand for ceramic Royal Oak complications remains firm, with examples routinely trading above retail, reflecting both the limited production volumes and sustained appetite for AP's high-complication sport-luxury references.