For those of you who thought the Olympics was a global sporting competition with its roots in ancient Greece—you are mostly correct. There’s also, of course, an element of requisite peacocking—great band name, btw—in the form of the Prelude to the Olympics, a star-studded event held this week at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in which every well-dressed celebrity and their mother made an appearance. Chief among said stars was none other than LeBron James rocking one of the world’s most coveted watches: a Cartier Crash.
Maybe you’re tired of hearing about the Cartier Crash already—it doesn’t matter. This melty piece of haute horlogerie, as familiar as it may have become in its dizzying rise to the top of horological circles, is still the grail piece for countless watch nerds out there. And for good reason: Its curvaceous silhouette is anything but standard fare. Plus, the Parisian maison makes so few of them that simply saving up enough scratch to scratch the Crash itch is a financial coup worthy of at least a pat on the head from the ghost of Charlie Munger.
We probably don’t need to recount this ludicrously desirable model’s history to you in full—but in brief: Cartier London accepted the challenge to design an unconventional watch by “pinching the ends at a point and pulling a kink in the middle.” After much trial and error, the Crash debuted in 1967 and sold for the equivalent of $9,000 or so today. (Writer clutches his proverbial pearls and swoons.) Not many were produced owing to the difficult, largely handmade manufacturing process, and Cartier’s business was eventually sold outside the family. But the model continued to be produced in the ’80s and ’90s; by the 2010s, collectors were going gaga for them, willing to pay multiple-six-figures to get in on the action. By 2024, watch editors were confident we had seen “Peak Crash.”
But at some point, LeBron James paid a lot of money—roughly $55,000 at retail, maybe $250,000 today—for a Crash in pink gold driven by a skeletonized, hand-wound, two-hand 9618 MC movement. Limited to 67 pieces, it was one of the “It” watches in 2016—the year it was released—and given its highly limited nature and admittedly wild movement, it remains furiously desirable today. And let’s be real: If you bought into the hype and dropped a BMW Z4’s worth of cash on a Crash, would you be willing to set it aside just because a bunch of “watch people” are sick of seeing them on Instagram?
We didn’t think so. I’m tellin’ ya—we haven’t seen the last of this Tom Brady-approved, Tyler the Creator-co-signed, Kanye West-worn slice of zeitgeist. We in the watch world may have seen our fill of it, but the larger world—the actual world—clearly has not. More to the point: James’s skeletonized Crash is, in this writer’s humble opinion, one of his best watches. Why not wear the hell out of it?
Lil Yachty’s “Domino’s” Rolex Air King
Did you know that Rolex used to put corporate logos on its watches? Sell enough pizzas for Domino’s, for example, and you might’ve landed yourself an Air King ref. 5500 with the brand’s colorful logo on it. Well, Rolex no longer makes these corporate-logo timepieces for the likes of Domino’s, Coca-Cola, or Chevrolet—however, there are a good number of them floating around the greater internet, and they’ve become increasingly popular over the past few years. Which is (presumably) why Lil Yachty is rocking one in his latest music video for “Let’s Get On Dey Ass.” Because as nearly every watch editor or dealer has verbalized when speaking about the “Domino’s” Rolex: “Who doesn’t love pizza?”
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Carlos Alcaraz’s Rolex Day-Date
Wimbledon champ Carlos Alcaraz rocked up to the Olympic Village wearing yet another stunning Rolex, the Day-Date 40. (A brand testimonee, the young Spaniard has access to some of the Crown’s most desirable timepieces.) His particular Day-Date appears to be a yellow gold reference with a matching “President” bracelet and a black, diamond-set dial—which, of course, features the model’s famed date and day windows with the day written in full. The “President,” as the watch is often called, debuted in 1956 as the world’s first timepiece with such a feature set, and has since been worn by numerous heads of state. Athletes, of course, are also particularly partial to them.
Ice Spice’s Richard Mille RM-05
In celebration of their song “Gangsta Boo” charting on the Billboard Hot 100, rapper Lil Tjay gifted Ice Spice a Richard Mille RM-05. (For those who are curious: The two insist they aren’t dating.) Crafted from rose gold and paired to a white rubber strap, this is no casual afterthought of a gift: an RM-05 will set you back about $100,000. Measuring 38mm in the brand’s famous tonneau-shaped case, it boasts an automatic movement visible behind a transparent dial, plus 100m of water resistance. Its most impressive feature, however, has to be its “variable geometry” rotor, which can be adjusted to customize the movement’s winding based upon the wearer’s activity level.
Brad Pitt’s IWC Ingenieur “Jumbo”
Though undoubtedly not the first watch that comes to mind when one thinks about F1, Brad Pitt’s vintage IWC Ingenieur “Jumbo” is a cutting-edge design that indeed jives well with high-end racing in cars crafted from space-age materials. The SL ref. 1832 was conceived of in the mid-1970s by famed watch designer Gérald Genta as a “luxury sports watch” take on the brand’s older Ingenieur watch from the ‘50s—his version had an integrated bracelet, a big case (for the time), and an automatic movement with anti-magnetic capabilities. Pitt, who’s filming the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced F1, is a noted collector and vintage watch lover who customized his “Jumbo” with a cool green dial—a move that feels decidedly Formula 1.