MILAN – American singer-songwriter-guitarist John Mayer is ensconced in a sofa at an Audemars Piguet (AP) event in Milan, talking about design harmony.

“In everything that I do, whether it’s designing a guitar, making a record, doing album art, putting a song together, there really is only one right way. You know it when you see it: There’s only one correct outcome.

“And that is when it’s so perfectly balanced with details that it becomes more than just 80 or 90 little things. If you do it right, nobody even notices the small little things that are happening,” says the multiple Grammy-award winner whose hits include Daughters (2003) and Your Body Is A Wonderland (2001).

Mayer – an avid watch collector and aficionado – is talking about the Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar John Mayer Limited Edition, which he designed for the Swiss luxury watchmaker. The headturner of a timepiece is the highlight of a slew of new AP releases unveiled in Milan.

Limited to 200 pieces and fashioned from white gold, the 150,000 Swiss francs (S$227,000) timepiece has a textured blue “crystal sky” dial filled with hundreds of sparkling irregular shapes. The mesmerising 3D surface is achieved by electro-forming atoms, one at a time, before they are polished and sealed with a deep blue coating through physical vapour deposition.

The result, in Mayer’s words, is “like looking at a picture window on a starry night. It’s always going to bring pleasure every time you look at it because it’s an ever-changing play of light”.

A huge fan of the watch brand, the musician says the collaboration happened when he approached former AP chief executive Francois-Henry Bennahmias – who left in 2023 after 30 years at the company – to design a unique piece for himself.

However, when Mr Bennahmias saw the design Mayer submitted in 2021, the Frenchman said: “We should make several of these.”

“It was going to be a representation of everything I loved about the QP,” the singer says, referring to the quantieme perpetuel or perpetual calendar, a horological complication which displays the time, day, date, month, week of the year, astronomical moon and leap year.

The QP, he says, “represents the perfect example of a complication because of the totality in the way in which you are envisioning time”.

“I’m kind of obsessed with time, not so much on a mathematical level, but on a spiritual level of thinking about time and passage of time. I write about it in songs,” he adds.

Mayer – who reportedly has a collection of more than 100 watches valued in the “tens of millions” of dollars – says he started by asking himself: “What would I consider to be the most sterling example of what a QP means to me visually?”

The answer, he decided, was “a dial you can stare at for hours”.

He is more than chuffed with how AP executed the watch.

“The play of light on the dial is endless. I keep staring at it and I still see new dimensions each time I look at it.”

The watch, he says, is also significant because it is a celebration of lasts and firsts.

It is the brand’s last limited-edition model to be fitted with the Caliber 5134, which is based on the legendary 2120 – a movement born in 1967 from the joint effort of AP, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Patek Philippe and Vacheron Constantin.

But the swan song is poetic in that it introduces the new crystal sky dial process and technique.

“It’s an honour to send off the calibre and reference this way. It is really clever to turn the idea of discontinuing a reference on its head. We normally think about discontinuing something as it being over, that we don’t need it any more.

“But this is a sort of coronation. You see this kind of celebration for the beginning of something,” says the collector who has also designed watches for other brands including G-Shock, and served as juror for the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Geneve, the Oscars of the watch world.

“It speaks to the power of what this watch has done; it has turned sports figures, heads of state, musicians, artists, people who normally wouldn’t have found a QP through the normal route of horological interest, to perpetual calendars.”

His expertise and passion for all things horological have earned him a new title from AP – creative conduit.

The description pleases him as he sees himself as a bridge between watchmakers and clients.

“I have this very interesting relationship with a brand where I continue to be a client. I think being a client is one of the best ways you can continue to understand the brand. So for me, it’s acting as a bridge – to be able to tell the story of certain pieces like the QP and to represent clients and their points of view back to the brand.”

Asked what he wants to see from AP in the future, he says: “I don’t want to always get my way. As a collector, I want to be caught off guard, surprised. I want to see things I didn’t expect. 

“The magic comes from looking at something we didn’t expect.”

Other new AP releases

Audemars Piguet unveiled about 20 new models in Milan in early March. Here are some highlights:

Royal Oak Selfwinding Flying Tourbillon Openworked 41mm in sand gold

This stunner of a timepiece is crafted from sand gold, a proprietary alloy which blends gold, copper and palladium. The result is a hue-shifting shade that looks different under different light conditions. 

The open-worked dial showcases the Calibre 2972, which boasts a rhodium-toned barrel and flying tourbillon at 6 o’clock. The dial and bridges go through a special galvanic process which enhances their intricate design with horizontal and vertical finishes.

Price: 250,000 Swiss francs

Royal Oak ‘Jumbo’ Extra-Thin Openworked 39mm in white gold

This classy white-gold iteration is the latest addition to the Royal Oak “Jumbo” Extra-Thin Openworked series, previously available in pink gold, yellow gold and steel. The superbly crafted 39mm timepiece houses the ultra-slim, self-winding Calibre 7124, which is 2.7mm thick.

The open-worked design showcases the intricate inner workings of the movement, beautifully contrasted against shades of anthracite grey.

The watch – which has a 57-hour power reserve – boasts polished and satin-finished surfaces, creating a play of light and shadow.

Price: 103,000 Swiss francs

Royal Oak Selfwinding Models 34mm

The Royal Oak collection gets two new additions, designed for those with slender wrists.

The first is fashioned from 18K pink gold, and beguiles with a vivid pink Grande Tapisserie dial, a shade achieved through advanced atomic layer deposition. It boasts pink gold applied hour-markers and hands, all illuminated with luminescent material for clear visibility in low light.

The second model has a two-tone combination of stainless steel and pink gold, with a grey PVD-coated Grande Tapisserie dial accented with pink gold elements.

Both are powered by the self-winding Calibre 5800, which has a 50-hour power reserve. 

Prices: 44,000 Swiss francs (pink gold), 23,800 Swiss francs (steel and pink gold)