The Swatch partnership with Audemars Piguet that yields the Royal Pop has infuriated many. As it turns out, watch-lovers are not looking for dangling toys. No one needs a timekeeping Labubu

The Audemars Piguet X Swatch Royal Pop

When the news broke over the weekend that Swatch’s next collaborative timepiece would be with Audemars Piguet, the world was elated beyond belief. Before the official pixels graced us, the ‘renditions’ arrived promptly, courtesy of AI platforms that specialise in giving people exactly what they want to be wrong about. As it turned out, the supposed take on AP’s beloved Royal Oak is not quite a wristwatch at all. Instead of a Royal Oak defined by its integrated bracelet—its “on-wrist” presence, Swatch is offering a version that could be a Bioceramic medal Barbie Olympics might have worn at a Tokyo 2020 podium, much to the chagrin of a more technically-minded Ken. By making it into a pocket watch and moving it to a lanyard, Swatch hasn’t just made it cheaper; they’ve rendered it irrelevant to the serious wearer. Could Swatch be tapping the still-palpable rage of the bag charm? But do we really need a flat, body-less, time-keeping Labubu?

But now that people have seen the actual photos of the products, many are saying they nearly puked! That might be a dramatic reaction, but Swatch has no doubt disappointed with the ‘Royal Pop’—timepieces (literally ‘pieces’) that are neither royal in stature nor do they “pop” in any aesthetic sense. Instead, they linger in that tragic middle ground of being horological wallflowers pretending to be new icons, and too cute to be taken seriously. It’s what we have been calling out in marketing and social media communication today: linguistic inflation. Claiming the pocket watches “pop” is a royal pain in the arse. It suggests a level of visual excitement that could be rivaled by watching beige paint dry in a dimly-lit room. They don’t command the space; they beg for a refund. One watch collector who was in the queue for the Swatch X Omega told us, “I am sitting it out. The worst Swatch collab ever.”

The Swatch Store at ION Orchard. No Queue, just a curious snapper

According to social media, queues have formed outside Swatch stores in New York’s 5rh Avenue and London’s Carnaby Street as we write this. This is surprising despite the palpable online nausea. Swatch is not releasing the Royal Pop here until Saturday morning (our time). The surprisingly early queues are a fascinating study in Swatch’s repeated use of hype. On one hand, you have the collectors who are genuinely repulsed by the pastel “Pop” aesthetic, and on the other, you have thousands of people willing to sleep on a sidewalk for three days just to get their hands on a Bioceramic disc with a lanyard. Let’s be honest—half the people in those lines probably couldn’t care less about the ‘Nivachron’ balance spring or the ‘Petite Tapisserie’ dial. They are there because they know the secondary market price for a S$535/S$570 AP non-consumable narcotic will skyrocket by Saturday afternoon. Like those clamouring for the Moonswatch, a proper wristwatch, this is their only chance to own anything with an AP logo.

We dropped by the Swatch store at ION Orchard this evening and was surprised not to find a single soul ready to spend the next three nights enjoying the cold proximity with the mall’s floor. The Royal Oak was on display in an acrylic box, placed on a grey block-pedestal. There were eight pieces, all held in their designated spaces, not beaming, not speaking to us. They looked like corded fidget spinners in need of fidgety fingers. Or the pendulous, desperate for a bag to dangle from. The salesman helpfully told us that the Royal Pop is not a limited-edition timepiece. When we mentioned that we were surprised a queue had not yet formed, he told us it’d likely start on Friday. When we asked for a sample to examine, to have a feel of the watch, he said there were none. AP and Swatch have cleverly built a ‘firewall’ for their collaboration. By making it a lanyard-linked object, they ensure it can never truly be confused with the real Royal Oak, even it is the castration of a classic. It is a collectible for the act-cute, love-cute masses that adore logos more than lineage, which is exactly what’s driving the traditionalists mad. Perhaps, that is what Swatch is deliberately creating—the divide.

Photos: AB Tan