Audemars Piguet’s frantic pivot to Yoon and Verbal is a desperate attempt to outrun the painful sting of the Swatch disaster

The publicity material for the new AP collab. Screen shot: audemarspiguet/YouTube

It is not easy to watch a storied haute horology giant stumble on a pavement and land really hard on the face. Cracked dials are easily replaced, but a shattered reputation is far harder to mend. Audemars Piguet (AP) has cultivated an aura of untouchable, atas alpine superiority, only to spend the past weekend flat in the mass-market longkang. The launch of the AP x Swatch Royal Pop spiralled from highly anticipated to spectacularly unraveled, and played out before millions across the world. It did not, as defenders of the collab claimed, democratise haute horology; it merely outsourced the brand’s hard-earned dignity to the volatile mercy of mall security and professional resellers. Yet, before the pepper spray could even clear from the sidewalks, AP executed a sprint faster than the Shinkansen to Tokyo’s design elite, announcing a “hyper-exclusive” (after Swatch, can it be anything less?) Flying Tourbillon with Yoon and Verbal of Ambush. It is an act of pure corporate panic: a frantic, six-figure jog designed to make the watch world look elsewhere, so we might all forget the absolute clown show on the streets.

Not only is the speed of the announcement telling, so too is the tone. In their communication material for the launch of the new watch, AP reminds us that, with Yoon (Ahn) and Verbal (Ryu Yeong-gi), they were “crafting time”. It is so glaringly obvious that even a legally blind bat wearing broken sunglasses could see that after the Swatch shock, AP is desperate to reassert its artisanal legitimacy. If you truly embody craft, you don’t need to insist on it. The repetition betrays anxiety. AP also says the partnership is “born from collective vision”. And with Swatch, it was a blind drift? AP’s CEO even told the media that working with Yoon and Verbal “offers a fresh lens on the Royal Oak Concept’s intricate architecture.” So, the Royal Pop was the result of smudged lens? And now, AP is all about coherence, purpose, and architectural clarity, when just five days ago there was discord, dismay, and structural gaslighting on the pavement. If AP’s new tone is a panicked correction, collaborator Swatch’s branding was worse: anarchic, unruly, spectacle-driven. If every watch is seen through a “fresh lens”, then none of them are.

It is so glaringly obvious that even a legally blind bat wearing broken sunglasses could see that after the Swatch shock, AP is desperate to reassert its artisanal legitimacy

No matter how AP spins it, both collaborations are driven by the same desperate scramble for youth relevance; they’ve simply chosen different dialects for the exact same mid-life crisis. One day they were putting a plastic chain around necks that led to global street chaos, the next day they’re hiding behind the high-concept Tokyo brutalism of Ambush. Ms Resta stated that the collaboration with Swatch represents “joy and boldness” and the exercise is not about increasing AP’s accessibility, but rather making mechanical watchmaking “more legible to people who have not yet had a reason to care.” Is that not what the collab with the Ambush pair is all about? AP avoided associating itself with hype, yet the very act of partnering with Yoon and Verbal is a youth-leaning move. They’re reaching out to the same demographic, but now they want to control the narrative—youth without chaos, relevance without dilution. It’s essentially the same outreach, just dressed in different rhetoric: Swatch was necessary”, Ambush—without a real one—is visionary. Last week, it was about cultural relevance. Today, the real preference: cultural refinement. Stupid us.

Again in their communique for the latest collab, Audemars Piguet calls itself “the Manufacture”, not, as the uninitiated would have thought, the manufacturer, and yes, with the capital M. It is akin to a vocalist refusing the title of singer, demanding instead to be called “The Song”. It isn’t a nickname given by collectors, fans, the public or the media. By contrast, “The Firm” is a sobriquet bestowed by the public and press, a nickname that stuck because it captured something about the British royal family’s aura and operations. It’s external, organic, and earned through repetition in discourse. By contrast, “the Manufacture” is self-anointed. It’s a rhetorical crown they’ve placed on their own head. But just because you wear a tengkolok (formal head-dress) does not make you a pahlawan (warrior). And it doesn’t just feel brittle; it is, more significantly, arrogant. True cultural authority comes when others nickname you, not when you do it yourself. Sure, AP wants to remind us they are “the Manufacture”, but the very need to emphasise it shows how fragile that authority feels today, right this very moment.

One brand manager, who has been following our coverage of the entire saga, said to us: “Less about saving the face, and more about rearranging the narrative before the bruises show.”