A Companion for Your Wrist

Audemars Piguet's new release with artist Brian Donnelly, a.k.a. KAWS, brings high-art hype to the world of pop-watch collabs.

- CAM WOLF

OVER THE COURSE of the past two years, Brian Donnelly, the artist better known as KAWS, became skilled at avoiding public detection. If a photographer approached him at an event, he'd subtly twist his wrist inward. He couldn't risk giving away the secret project he's been working on since 2022. But in early September some Instagram sleuths zoomed in on his wrist to find the telltale KAWS X's on the face of his Audemars Piguet Royal Oak—the same X's he regularly paints over the eyes of Bart Simpson, SpongeBob, Elmo, and other famous toons. The news was out: A KAWS Royal Oak was on the way. "I was bummed that the watch got out to the public, because I wanted to keep the snow fresh," Donnelly told me during a video call recently.