Here's the Swatch pocket watch causing a frenzy and forcing London store closures
Panic at the Swatch Store
Collectable Pokémon cards and limited edition trainers can cause quite a stir when they arrive, but few of those launches can match the fuss made over a new Swatch collab watch.
The latest is a collaboration between Swatch and high-end watch-maker Audemars Piguet, and over the weekend it caused London Swatch stores to temporarily close — alongside those across the UK.
There was a rush on the Swatch London Battersea Power Station store when the watch series launched on Saturday, 16th May. It looked like carnage, per Instagram videos captured by shoppers, with crowds rushing the entrance.
“To ensure the safety of both our customers and our staff in Swatch stores, we kindly ask you not to rush to our stores in large numbers to acquire this product,” Swatch posted on both its website and social media accounts.
“The Royal Pop Collection will remain available for several months. In some countries, queues of more than 50 people cannot be accepted, and sales may need to be paused.”
The heat on this launch was turned up thanks to the way it was run — fans had to get there in person, and could not simply reserve a watch online. Audemars Piguet x Swatch watches are already selling for well over £1000 on eBay, where in person these timepieces start at a more reasonable £335, rising to £350 for half of the styles (those with the second dial).
The family is called the Royal Pop Collection, and it’s home to eight pocket watches. There are two green designs, three blue ones, a pink pocket watch, a white one and a particularly bold yellow and pink style dubbed OTG ROZ. There are also eight colours of leather lanyard, at £38 a pop.
You might guess these are basic plastic watches at a glance, but — as most would hope given the cost — they are a bit more upmarket than that. The bezel is bioceramic, which is roughly two-thirds ceramic to one third plastic, for a smooth and hard surface.
The Royal Pop Collection uses Swatch’s SISTEM51 movement. And these watches are one way to own an Audemars Piguet branded timepiece that won’t set you back tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds.
It’s the third brand collab of this kind for Swatch, following the 2022 OMEGA x Swatch MoonSwatch collection and the 2023 Blancpain x Swatch Fifty Fathoms series.
While the MoonSwatch launch in particular made headlines for its queues, both that series and the Blancpain tie-ins are available at reasonable resale prices today. The Royal Pop Collection goldrush will most likely be short-lived.
They are, after all, described as “non-limited.” Fancy getting one? The Audemars Piguet x Swatch Royal Pop Collection pieces are available from “selected Swatch stores,” and are limited to one per person per store and per day. But they may well be hard to find for a while.
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