[imagesource: Getty Images / Andy Lyons]

Everyone’s eyes were on LeBron James’ wrist at the Super Bowl on Sunday.

In fact, once you saw the watch on the basketballer’s wrist, you saw it all over.

That’s because the highly sought after timepiece is from a brand that all the biggest celebs are into now, with a few hip-hop artists even dedicating a song or two to the watch.

Patek Philippe is dominating, which means Rolex is taking a seat on the bench.

From Queen Victoria to Cardi B, as CNN writes, the world’s most expensive watchmaker has travelled through time with its reputation well and truly intact.

The 182-year-old brand, which promotes history and heritage as markers of quality, has now become a status symbol all over social media.

Here’s Cardi B with her diamond-covered Patek:

Not that the company had to reposition its brand to get all the zeitgeisty celebs onboard. Rather, the rappers and movie stars came to Patek Philippe on their own.

Nick Marino, senior vice president of content at online watch magazine, Hodinkee, speaks about this Patek surge:

“Rappers are smart,” he added. “They know what status means and they know what exclusivity means. You might expect rappers to talk about Richard Mille, because that’s a young, flashy, ‘new money’ watch brand — and rappers love that one too — but I love that they love the old-money watch brands.

“By positioning themselves as Patek customers, rappers are positioning themselves in the lineage of elites going all the way back to the 19th century. That’s power.”

Patek Philippe has been a symbol of luxury since 1839 and in 2017, lyrical references to the timepiece pretty much exploded.

According to music website Genius, one-third of the songs on the Billboard Hot 100 mentioned the brand in 2017:

Travis Scott has rapped about his “two-tone Patek,” Cardi B (pictured top) “flooded” hers with diamonds and Gucci Mane suggested that his was “gon’ make this crooked judge try throw the book at me.”

Young Thug, Migos and Future have all mentioned their Patek Philippe timepieces, while Lil Uzi Vert has such affinity with the watchmaker that he released two tracks honoring it, “Patek” and “New Patek.” (“New Patek on my wrist,” he said in the latter, “white diamonds, them sh**s hit pink.”)

The brand even managed to get on the wrist of the ultimate celeb hippie, Leonardo DiCaprio:

DiCaprio is wearing the Nautilus with a Tiffany-blue dial (the same as LeBron and Jay-Z), one of the most popular versions that has now been discontinued.

According to GQ, someone was willing to fork out over $6,5 million for this blue-faced watch rather than take their chances with the long waitlist.

The insane waiting lists and resale prices, making it quite a prize when you do eventually get your hands on a Patek, has become a surefire way to get people into the brand.

Only “carefully vetted clients” get added to a waiting list, after which they sometimes have to wait for up to eight years to actually make the purchase.

Then, they pay quite a hefty price:

Celebrities’ fixation with Patek Philippe may just reflect its status as the world’s most expensive watchmaker — if auction records are your measure, at least. The brand is responsible for eight of the 10 priciest watches ever to go under the hammer, including a stainless-steel Reference 1518 that fetched over 11 million Swiss francs ($11.1 million) and a pink gold version that smashed estimates to sell for almost $9.6 million last September.

Considered among the most complicated mechanical watches ever produced, the Patek Philippe Henry Graves Supercomplication became the world’s most expensive timepiece when it sold for 23.2 million Swiss francs ($24 million) in 2014.

Kevin Hart wore his Patek Philippe Celestial at a movie premiere in 2017:

To really add to the aura of exclusivity, the brand has worked on its supply and demand model with just as much craft as that which goes into the watch itself.

Patek Philippe’s annual output may be as little as 50 000 watches. Rolex, on the other hand, is thought to produce in the region of a million timepieces a year.

After all, if the brand had to ramp up production, the watch would no longer have the craftsmanship that one pays for, to begin with.

[sources:cnn&gq&highsnobiety]