The Audemars Piguet x Swatch Royal Pop Has Officially Arrived

The Details

With the amount of anticipation and attention this has received, there is a lot to process and peel back, but let’s get straight to the obvious: the Royal Pop, as it is dubbed, is a pocket watch and not a wrist watch that combines the DNAs of Audemars Piguet’s Royal Oak from 1972 and Swatch’s POP watches of the 1980s. A Royal Oak wristwatch exists in Audemars Piguet’s production books, ref. 5691 from 1979, and this collaboration is a descendant of that reference.

The collaboration piece features all the emblematic elements of the Royal Oak (except the integrated bracelet), with the “Petite Tapisserie” dial pattern, octagonal bezel, and eight hexagonal screws. As with the previous two collaborations, the pocket watch’s main structural and ancillary components — crown, case, and lanyard attachment — are crafted from Swatch’s Bioceramic biosourced material. Given the nature of Bioceramic, subtle details, such as the vertical satin finish on the bezel and case back, suggest a more complex production process. Sapphire crystals are used on the front and back. A word of note, the hexagonal screws on the bezel and caseback are confirmed to be non-functional as they are welded to the case.

The eight editions, a nod to the eight-sided bezel, are powered by Swatch’s other innovation, the SISTEM51 movement, designed as a manual winding calibre with Lépine or Savonnette configurations. Swatch’s laser-precision-adjusted movement is upgraded with the anti-magnetic Nivachron™ balance spring,, which Audemars Piguet helped develop in 2018. As you flip the pocket watch over, you will be greeted by eight unique colour schemes, with an aperture on the partially open case back that exposes the movement’s barrel. A visible mainspring and grey coloured barrel indicate the watch needs winding; conversely, a fully compressed mainspring and gold coloured barrel indicate the watch is fully wound. At full capacity, the calibre’s power reserve is approximated to be 90 hours. This is one of the 15 active patents filed under the SISTEM51 movement.

Of the eight pieces, six of them feature the Lépine configuration — a two-hander with the crown positioned at 12 o’clock. The remaining two Savonnette configuration models feature an additional small seconds subdial at 6 o’clock, with the crown at 3 o’clock. Each piece is paired with a calfskin lanyard with contrast stitching in three different lengths to choose from and is accompanied by a small removable stand that converts the pocket watch into a desk clock.

History Repeats Itself

Four teasers were released, with the first two being rather innocuous. The third teaser with the “Royal Pop” typography sparked the frenzy as anticipation went parabolic. During the ensuing four-day gap before the fourth and final trailer, speculation, commentary, and AI-generated renders flooded social media platforms. If generating buzz was the main objective, then this project would have scored an A+.

Whatever happened four years ago with the MoonSwatch collection, the attention, craze, split opinions, insane queues, sellouts, etc, is repeating itself with this collaboration. The world was not ready then because such projects had never existed in the playbook, but two collaborations later, it is ready now. Or is it?

Queues reportedly formed at the New York and London Swatch boutiques by the fourth teaser release, but the mood and narrative abruptly changed after the unveiling. The initial furore quickly turned into a massive backlash from those within the watch scene, while pockets of casual onlookers poked fun and teased with glee. It is expected that opinion will be split and that Audemars Piguet owners in particular will be offended. The writing was on the wall, and the MoonSwatch saga taught us that already.

Those looking to make a quick buck by scalping their “expected” Royal Pop with an integrated bracelet were massively disappointed. As Bimma Williams rightly pointed out, and I quote him, “people aren’t mad at the Royal Pop. They’re mad that it wasn’t the fake Royal Oak they imagined because people wanted access to status more than they cared about the product itself.”

A wristwatch would have been too predictable, and the Royal Pop lives up to Swatch’s nickname from 1985 — “the enfant terrible of the Swiss watch industry,” a rather harsh one for the saviours of the Swiss watch industry. What caught my attention in the official presser was the header, “Audemars Piguet × Swatch Break the Rules of Watchmaking”. A few bells started ringing in my head because it is a throwback and reminder of one of Audemars Piguet’s slogans, “To break the rules, you must first master them”. Where this sits on Audemars Piguet’s spectrum of divisive collaborations remains to be seen, but just note that there are plenty of wild examples in their archive books, such as the NSYNC Pop Odyssey Royal Oak.

I, for one, am particularly happy that it turned out to be a pocket watch because it is a massive middle finger to the scalpers. That said, I am particularly enamoured with the Royal Pop as a home accessory. Imagine it sitting atop a La Marzocco Linea Mini or alongside a perfectly trimmed bonsai and Louis Poulsen Panthella. The idea of having it as a bag charm is cute, but would you risk a 500-odd bucks dangling in the open?

Regardless, groups of people still view the release as a money-making opportunity. What the prices will be like on the secondary market remains to be seen. As of now, queuing services in Singapore are going as high as $500 on Carousell. Third-party strap makers around the world are scrambling to develop bracelet solutions to convert the Royal Pop into a wristwatch. The Audemars Piguet x Swatch Royal Pop will go on sale tomorrow, on 16 May, at the ION Orchard, Marina Bay Sands and Vivo City Swatch boutiques. A lot remains to be seen about how the collaboration pans out. Stay tuned for a follow-up in a couple of weeks or so.

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Watch & Jewellery