Stephen Graham arrived at the Venice Film Festival yesterday wearing his go-to white-dial Rolex Cosmograph Daytona Ref. 116520. However, by the time he walked the Sala Grande carpet for the world premiere of his new film Bunker on Tuesday night, he had changed into a Louis Vuitton Tambour in steel with a blue dial.
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The £18,700 watch was part of a complete Louis Vuitton look, combined with a Louis Vuitton suit and loafers. Graham wore Louis Vuitton to the men’s show in Paris this June and has since been collaborating with Creative Director Pharrell and the French luxury house.
The 40mm Tambour Ref. W1ST20 combines a steel case with an integrated steel bracelet and stunning deep blue dial. Inside is Louis Vuitton’s automatic LFT023 calibre, made at La Fabrique du Temps in Geneva, with a 50-hour power reserve and 22ct rose-gold micro-rotor. The Tambour was relaunched and redesigned by Jean Arnault’s team in 2023, twenty one years after the Parisian brand first launched the drum shaped watch.
Prior to yesterday Grahams watch of choice has been his trusty Rolex Daytona. At last year’s Emmy Awards the Adolescence star wore this Rolex Daytona – reference 116520 housing a Rolex 4130 movement, which was introduced to the Daytona models in 2000 and was in production until 2016. Examples sell on the secondary market for around £20,000. The watch has 72 hours of power reserve, a sleek sub-dial and polished bezel. Graham was previously spotted wearing this watch, notably in 2025 while doing the press for A Thousand Blows.
The contrast between Graham’s two watches is more interesting than just another standard red-carpet placement. The Tambour is a current Louis Vuitton watch supplied as part of the evening’s look. The Rolex appears to be Graham’s own and he appears to have no contractual arrangement with the Swiss watchmaker, he wears the watch through choice.
By wearing the Tambour watch at Venice he switched things up entirely. Graham wore the Rolex when he arrived but changed into the Louis Vuitton for the official screening. It’s a message that’s impossible not to notice. Graham’s known for his Rolex but deliberately changed to the Tambour. The actor may still prefer to wear his Rolex off duty but when the cameras are on, he’s now firmly a Louis Vuitton man.
Graham was in Venice for Florian Zeller’s Bunker, in which he appears alongside Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz and Paul Dano.
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