Swatch has officially revealed its collaboration with luxury watch brand Audemars Piguet, one that has been breaking Instagram with countless AI-generated fake images since the linkup was confirmed on May 8. As suspected, it’s not a wristwatch, but a series of pocket watches based on AP’s classic Royal Oak design.
The news is a surprise as it comes ahead of May 16, the date Swatch initially teased in its social media posts. The colorful pocket watches are called the Royal Pop Collection, and are billed by the brand as “a groundbreaking union of Audemars Piguet’s iconic Royal Oak and Swatch’s POP watches from the 1980s.”
The Royal Pop watches marry design hallmarks from Audemars Piguet’s iconic Royal Oak collection, launched in 1972, as well as the Swatch POP watches of the 1980s. In a statement, Swatch said that “this collection will change the way we wear watches. The watches in the AP x Swatch collaboration break free from the wrist … allowing you to wear the watch in unexpected, playful, and dynamic ways.”
Courtesy of Swatch
Courtesy of Swatch
It was widely guessed that the automatic movement powering the Royal Pops would be Swatch’s own Sistem51, which is entirely assembled on an automated production line and requires no human handling. However, Swatch says it made a brand-new version of the movement for this collab that retools Sistem51 as a hand-wound caliber with an impressive 90-hour power reserve.
The pocket watches will be available starting May 16 in one of two styles, Lépine (with the crown at 12 o’clock) and Savonnette (the crown at 3 pm), at 200 select Swatch stores worldwide, restricted to one piece per person per store per day. The Lépine-style retails for $400, and the Savonnette-style retails for $420.
The one-off collection consists of eight pocket watches in eight different colors and are named after variations of the word “eight” in French, English, Italian, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, German, and Romansh (a language in Switzerland): white, Huit Blanc; pink, Otto Rosso; green, Green Eight; lime green/blue, Blaue Acht; navy/orange, Orenji Hachi; blue/light blue, Lan Ba; black/white, Ocho Negro; pink/yellow/teal, Otg Roz.
Courtesy of Swatch
Courtesy of Swatch
