AUDEMARS PIGUET ROYAL OAK: WILD BLUE

Audemars Piguet has teamed up with musician John Mayer to design this Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar

To the average Joe, John Mayer is the seven-time GRAMMY Award-winning musician who brought us ‘Edge of Desire’ and ‘Slow Dancing In a Burning Room’. But, to horologists, the guitarist is renowned for his watch collection. Currently valued in the tens of millions of dollars, Mayer’s timepieces span the world of watches from a Casio G-Shock, right up to a whole arm’s worth of Audemars Piguet Royal Oaks.

It was this dedication to one single model that has led to the Swiss Haute Horlogerie manufacturer collaborating with the guitarist on the latest iteration of the Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar. A long-lasting friend of the brand, Mayer lent his collector’s eye and his taste for precision and aesthetic beauty to the collaboration. The musician worked hand in hand with the AP teams to design the “Crystal Sky” dial, with its texture creating depth to a complication that has shaped the world of Audemars Piguet since its beginnings.

The brass dial plate is finished with a new pattern developed by Audemars Piguet’s artisans to give life to John Mayer’s vision. The embossed motif is composed of irregular shapes resembling crystals, whose sharp angles and facets add relief and brilliance to the piece.

Mayer concludes: “My favourite watches have dials that you can stare endlessly at. A great watch dial feels like a picture window – you look into it, not at it. In the case of this QP, it’s like looking up at a moonless sky. There is a true sense of nature in it. And when you couple that sense of depth and vastness with the complication of a perpetual calendar, it is a very powerful combination of technical prowess and aesthetic design.”