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.
However, the actual watch Donnelly made in collaboration with Audemars Piguet, which is to be released on November 19, has little in common with the custom one he was caught wearing. The real thing, called the Royal Oak Concept Tourbillon “Companion,” features an obsessively crafted miniature re-creation of the artist’s Companion figure trapped inside the watch face, palms pressed out against the crystal. Despite having this demented grayscale Mickey Mouse–like figurine inside, the titanium watch is “shockingly light,” Donnelly said, and comes with a brand-new movement with a tourbillon true to AP’s technical prowess.
While Donnelly has returned again and again to iconic cartoon characters for his work, the roots of this new Royal Oak Concept go back to another fictional universe: Marvel comics. Over the past few years, the watchmaker released a series of timepieces with Black Panther and Spider-Man figures at the center. Those superhero designs showed KAWS that Audemars Piguet could make real his vision. “I thought, If I’m going to do a watch with them, I want to do something that’s really in line with the sculptures I do and have it live in a watch space,” Donnelly explained. “Seeing the Marvel [watches], immediately I knew there was no question we could go in that direction.”
The sculpture inside the case is a shrunken version of the large-scale Companions that Donnelly shows in galleries and museums around the world. “I’m used to working with these massive scales of 20 meters, so to work on something that’s sitting [inside a watch that’s] just 43 millimeters is really interesting,” he said. But whether he’s building a three-story-tall sculpture or one fit for a wrist, he’s looking for the best materi-als and partners. “I’m fascinated by watches,” Donnelly said. “There’s so much that goes in this small, little object; it’s a little jewel box.” AP isn’t enlisting Donnelly only for the wrist-size work—the artist is also installing a large, inflatable Companion on the roof of the manufacturer’s headquarters in Le Brassus, Switzerland.
This KAWS collaboration is the natural result of watch fascination transcending the niche world of die-hard enthusiasts. Donnelly sees a similar thing happening in the art world. “I feel like the watch world has gone through a similar growth [to art] where it might have existed in this connoisseur niche,” he said, “and now it’s opened up to a lot more people.” As a consequence, the watch industry has been evolving to welcome new clients. Few do this better than Audemars Piguet, which has collaborated across the pop culture spectrum from Marvel to Travis Scott to the fashion designer Matthew Williams.
Watch enthusiasts often argue that there is no luxury better than a timepiece, because you can take it everywhere. The Ferrari gets left in the garage, and the ski house in Vail sits empty for months at a time. You could buy one of Donnelly’s paintings for a few million dollars, but it will be stuck on your wall when you leave for dinner. The KAWS AP, however, will be your companion wherever you go.
Cam Wolf is GQ’s Watch Editor.
A version of this story originally appeared in the 2024 GQ Men of the Year issue with the title “A Companion for Your Wrist”
