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What can we say about Sir Lewis Hamilton that hasn’t been said before—that we haven’t said before? The Brit superstar is the winningest Formula 1 driver in history, but that’s merely the beginning of a long list of accolades: He’s also a social activist, a designer, a restauranteur, a musician, a voice actor, and a part-owner of an NFL team. What you might not know, however, is that Hamilton is also a very serious watch guy.
So serious, in fact, that he’s a brand ambassador of Schaffhausen-based IWC. With its long history of producing serious tool watches for pilots, dress watches for businessmen, and anti-magnetic watches for engineers, IWC is the perfect partner for a driven, perfectionist athlete such as Hamilton. But the 38-year-old racer is no typical celebrity brand ambassador—he’s so serious about horology, in fact, that he recently teamed up with the brand to design his own watch, a tourbillon- and calendar-equipped Potugieser in platinum.
This week, Hamilton was spotted in Qatar during preview for the F1 Grand Prix at Lusail International Circuit in a copper-toned look offset with a highly conspicuous piece of wristwear—the IWC Pilot's Watch Chronograph Top Gun Edition "Lake Tahoe." Remember how we mentioned IWC’s tool watch bona fides? This baby is the modern embodiment of the marque’s expertise in building go-anywhere, do-anything watches for professionals. (It also makes for quite the style statement, with its all-white livery positively popping off the wrist.)
What makes the “Lake Tahoe” such a killer watch? First up is the white ceramic case. IWC’s new manufacture, which was inaugurated in 2018, is a state-of-the-art facility where the brand fashions its own cases—a task so specialized that only a handful of watch companies do it in-house. Poking out from within this striking 44.5mm housing is a black dial in a typical pilot’s configuration—think large, white Arabic numeral indices, a triangular index at 12 o’clock, and a white sword handset—plus a triple-register chronograph display and a day-date display at 3 o’clock.
While IWC used to power steel-cased versions of similar watches with third-party movements, the “Lake Tahoe” contains the brand’s in-house automatic Calibre 69380 movement with 242 tiny components inside. This engine, combined with the ceramic case, makes for a thick watch at 15.7mm—but if you can pull off a timepiece 44.5mm across, you can conceivably deal just fine with the case height.
All this to say that while Hamilton’s bona fides on the track were never in question, his bona fides as a watch guy are now etched in stone.
The Colombian musician looked smart on Jimmy Fallon dressed in a sequined blue suit and a watch to match—the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Skeleton ref. 15412BC. A not-so-subtle version of the brand’s famed luxury sports watch, it features a 41mm frosted white gold case, a bezel set with 32 baguette-cut gemstones in a rainbow pattern, and an openworked dial with an automatic movement beating beneath. Loud and striking, it’s a compelling alternative to the more famous “Rainbow” Daytona from Rolex.
Ice Spice appeared in a promo for SNL’s season premiere with quite a gift on her wrist: Fellow rapper Lil Tjay hooked her up with an RM-05 in rose gold from Swiss brand Richard Mille. Though it’s fairly straightforward with respect to featured complications, the RM-05 is certainly no slouch in terms of movement construction, R&D, or materials—hence the six-figure price tag. Built upon a titanium baseplate, it features a variable geometry rotor, a semi-instantaneous date-change, and an eye-catching, skeletonized dial. Highly technical in aesthetics and construction, it’s an awesome antidote to the typically (much) louder, iced-out wrist wear that’s prevalent in hip hop.
Brooklyn Nets star Simmons has had some tough luck with injuries over the past few years, but the man’s wrist game certainly hasn’t suffered. To wit: He was spotted courtside at a Nets game sporting one heck of a Patek, a reference 5261R. A member of the Aquanaut line, it’s the first entry in the collection to be outfitted with an annual calendar—a type of complication that only requires manual adjustment at the end of February. Introduced at Watches & Wonders Geneva 2023, it features an 18-karat rose gold case paired to a gray-blue dial and a matching rubber strap. (Look closely and you’ll see that the moon phase display, which typically sits above 6 o’clock, is here situated below 12. Kinda rad!)
Let’s continue with the Patek throughline for a moment as we check out another courtside wrist fit: Steve Harvey in a ref. 5271P. For the uninitiated, this thing is a “grand complication,” a sort of ne plus ultra of high horology combining multiple complications. Specifically, the ref. 5271P features a perpetual calendar (which barely requires manual adjustment from the wearer so long as it remains wound) and a chronograph. But the best-dressed man in game shows didn’t pick this watch merely for the “watch guy” points—the 80 baguette-cut diamonds in the bezel, lug, and clasp are designed to dazzle from half an arena away.
