It wasn’t enough for Tom Brady to wear a single outrageous timepiece this week. Instead, he showcased the full spectrum of his collection, from a classic sport watch model to one that looks like it could be from the future.
The fun started last weekend when the seven-time Super Bowl champ was spotted courtside at the Knicks-Nets game in a Rolex Cosmograph Daytona ref. 116506. This platinum-cased version of the famous racing chronograph has an extra trick up its sleeve. Look carefully at Brady’s version and you’ll notice that it’s set with eight baguette-cut diamond hour indices. (You can nab the watch without diamond indices if you so desire, but if you’re gonna drop over $70K on a bit of antiquated timekeeping technology, what’s an extra $10,000 between friends?) Like many platinum Rollies, it’s got an ice-blue dial as well as a brown Cerachrom bezel and a matching platinum Oyster bracelet. (If you’ve never tried one of these on, they are heavy watches, so it helps to be six feet four and 225 lbs.)
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But the tier-one Daytona wasn’t the only bit of wrist candy to catch our eye this week. Another stint of horological paparazzing caught Brady golfing in a Richard Mille RM 72-01. This watch, available in various precious and high-tech metals, is notable for being the first RM to feature an entirely in-house caliber, the CRMC-1. (Most previous RMs used movements developed by suppliers such as Manufacture Vaucher and Renaud & Papi.) A flyback chronograph in a tonneau-shaped case, it boasts seconds, minutes, and 24-hour totalizers with color-coordinated hands, a semi-instantaneous date display, and the brand’s famous tonneau-shaped case constructed in three parts.
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With a roughly $100,000 spread in list price, the Daytona and the RM 72-01 have much in common as well as several telling differences. Both are chronographs with the ability to record elapsed time, and both are distinct status symbols known outside the watch world as indications of prestige and wealth. That’s where the similarities end, though. The Daytona utilizes a fairly straightforward (albeit very well-built) movement and case design, while the RM is distinctly tech-forward, with an emphasis on special materials and a unique, double-tilting clutch system. The Daytona, despite its platinum construction and diamond-encrusted dial, is immediately recognizable as stemming from a decades-old line with roots in mid-20th-century racing. The RM, on the other hand, is still a relatively new design that doesn’t have much in common aesthetically with any other brands’ offerings.
Brady is well known for having wide-ranging taste in watches, which is reflected in his vast collection. It’s part of the reason we never find ourselves bored by his horological choices: Though there are many classics present and accounted for, you never know what you’re gonna get on any given day.
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John David Washington’s Cartier Santos-Dumont Skeleton
When he’s not fighting off an attack from the future as an ex–CIA agent with time-traveling capabilities, John David Washington is rocking excellent Cartiers at awards ceremonies. Spotted at the 15th Annual Governors Awards this week, he wore a Large-size Cartier Santos-Dumont Skeleton in yellow gold with a blue lacquer bezel. This particular take on the Santos-Dumont stems from 2023 when the maison gave its aeronautical collection a new micro-rotor automatic movement. Look carefully and you’ll realize that the micro-rotor is in the shape of an airplane—a fanciful touch that adds a bit of whimsy to an otherwise largely formal design. Measuring 31mm by 8mm thick, it’s a well-sized piece that brings a certain je ne sais quois to the dress watch category.
Colman Domingo’s Panthère de Cartier
Speaking of excellent Cartiers, Colman Domingo was spotted wearing a two-tone steel and yellow gold Panthère de Cartier in the collection’s Large size. Though this line has long been marketed toward women, it’s also known to be favored by distinctly stylish dudes like Pierce Brosnan, Keith Richards, and Timothée Chalamet. Its svelte silhouette makes it the perfect dress piece, and its wide array of available sizes and configurations means that anyone can find a suitable version. Domingo’s Large-size model looked perfect with his left-of-center take on a double-breasted tux in grey and white check.
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Jonathan Bailey’s Omega De Ville Prestige
Jonathan Bailey impressed at the New York premiere of Wicked with a timepiece that right on the Tiny Watch Trend of 2024. The 27.5-mm Omega De Ville Prestige in steel with a yellow gold bezel is a quartz-powered dress watch with a mother-of-pearl dial and alternating yellow gold and diamond indices. Powered by the brand’s 4061 movement and paired to a black leather strap, it’s the perfect cocktail-attire watch, and jelled well with Bailey’s white dinner jacket. Like the aforementioned Panthère de Cartier, watches in this size and configuration were once largely marketed to women, but this has changed over the past few years.
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Jason Armond
Daniel Craig’s (Unreleased) Omega Seamaster Diver 300M
In keeping with the current mode of surreptitiously strapping unreleased Omegas onto Daniel Craig’s wrist when he makes a conspicuous public appearance, the ex–secret agent wore an as yet unknown take on the Seamaster Diver 300M to the Governors Awards this week. This version, complete with a metal mesh bracelet in the mode of his No Time to Die watch—as well as the freshly released black and gray Seamaster models in stainless steel—it appears to have a burgundy bezel insert and a black dial. If the recent past is any indication, we should see this new take on the brand’s famous diver drop officially within the next few months, likely in early 2025.
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