Watch Paparazzi

Entrepreneur Steven Zhang spotted wearing Audemars Piguet

Steven Zhang, the entrepreneur and chairman of Serie A football club Inter Milan, was recently spotted wearing one of Audemars Piguet's most technically ambitious and aesthetically refined pieces: the Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar in white ceramic, reference 26579CB. The sighting reinforces Zhang's reputation as a genuine watch collector rather than a passive luxury consumer.

The Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar Ref. 26579CB is built around Calibre 5134, a self-winding movement beating at 19,800 vph with a 40-hour power reserve. The complication itself is a mechanical perpetual calendar — displaying date, day, month, moon phase, and leap year — programmed to require no correction until February 28, 2100. The 41mm case is crafted entirely in white ceramic, a material demanding extreme precision in machining and finishing, given ceramics' inherent brittleness. The signature octagonal bezel with its eight hex screws is fully executed in the same material, presenting a monochromatic purity that contrasts sharply with the sunburst blue Grande Tapisserie dial beneath.

The Grande Tapisserie pattern — AP's proprietary checkerboard guilloché — takes on a different character in this configuration. Against the white ceramic case, the blue dial reads as bold yet refined, while the silver-toned subsidiary dials for the perpetual calendar indications maintain legibility without cluttering the composition. It is a dial that rewards closer inspection.

From a collector standpoint, the Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar in ceramic occupies a specific and coveted niche. White ceramic Royal Oaks are produced in limited volumes and tend to hold their value firmly on the secondary market. The combination of a high complication — perpetual calendar — with an exotic case material is precisely the formula that drives sustained collector demand. The ref. 26579CB is not a watch one picks up casually; it represents deliberate, informed acquisition.

Steven Zhang's public profile has increasingly included notable horological choices, consistent with the broader culture among young, globally mobile entrepreneurs who treat serious watchmaking as a genuine area of connoisseurship. At a UK list price of approximately £91,500, the Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar Ref. 26579CB sits at the upper tier of the AP catalogue — and the grey market reflects that desirability accordingly.