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Television presenter Ellen spotted wearing Audemars Piguet

Ellen DeGeneres closed out the final episodes of The Ellen Show this week after 19 seasons, and the wrist she extended one last time to her audience was doing serious horological heavy lifting. On it: the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar Ultra-Thin RD2, reference 26586IP — one of the most technically ambitious watches the Le Brassus manufacture has produced in the modern era.

The 26586IP is built around Calibre 2953, a self-winding perpetual calendar movement measuring just 2.89mm in height. When AP introduced the RD2 concept — Research & Development, second chapter — it set a world record for the thinnest automatic perpetual calendar wristwatch. The movement manages the full perpetual calendar complication, displaying date, day, month, moon phase, and leap year cycle, all within a total case thickness of 6.3mm. That is barely thicker than many simple three-hand watches on the market today, and the engineering required to achieve it is genuinely extraordinary.

The reference 26586IP uses a titanium case measuring 41mm, with iridium-treated components giving the piece its distinctive dark, violet-tinged character. The dial continues in the same material language — structured with the Royal Oak's signature Grande Tapisserie pattern but rendered with a depth and colour shift that reads differently under every light source. The octagonal bezel, Gerald Genta's 1972 masterstroke, remains unchanged in proportion but takes on new weight in this material combination.

Among collectors, the RD2 perpetual calendar occupies a very specific position: it is not a limited edition in the conventional sense but commands immediate grey-market premiums due to constrained production volumes and the technical prestige attached to the movement. The iridium-purple variant in particular has attracted sustained collector attention since its debut, appreciated as much by horological purists as by those drawn purely to its aesthetics.

DeGeneres has long maintained a considered watch collection, with AP Royal Oaks appearing at several high-profile moments. Choosing the 26586IP for the final week of a show that defined a generation of daytime television is a fitting punctuation mark — understated in scale, substantial in meaning.