Swatch and Audemars Piguet’s ‘high-low’ collab sparked a frenzy. Who’s the real winner?
By Oscar Holland, CNN
(CNN) — One company sells millions of low-cost watches a year, the other makes luxury watches that have sold for millions. Together, Swatch and Audemars Piguet have sparked a “high-meets-low” retail frenzy that saw scenes of mayhem unfold in cities around the world over the weekend.
From Paris to Kuala Lumpur, long lines formed outside Swatch stores ahead of Saturday’s launch of “Royal Pop,” a series of cheerfully colored pocket watches modeled on AP’s iconic Royal Oak. Billed by the companies as “a disruptive collaboration between two icons of Swiss watchmaking,” hype around the long-anticipated collection exploded online after the designs were revealed last week.
But scenes turned ugly in several locations, with videos shared online showing fights breaking out and security guards struggling to contain large crowds.
In the US, 19 Swatch outlets were closed over safety concerns, and a police officer in Long Island, New York appeared to use pepper-spray on a crowd. Stores in several European cities were also temporarily shuttered, while Swatch preemptively canceled launch events in India and Dubai. Police in both the UK and US reportedly made arrests after crowds failed to disperse.
On Sunday, Swatch issued a social media statement urging customers “not to rush to our stores in large numbers,” citing concern for the safety of staff and shoppers. It added: “In some countries, queues of more than 50 people cannot be accepted, and sales may need to be paused.” On its website, Swatch meanwhile assured customers that the collection will “remain available for several months.”
Why the fuss?
The viral timepieces are designed in eight different colorways (from the monochrome “Ocho Negro” to the bright pink, yellow and teal “Otg Roz”) — a number referencing the Royal Oak’s distinctive octagonal case and eight-sided bezel. The pocket watches come with a calfskin lanyard, rather than a wrist strap, making them better suited to being worn around the neck or attached to a bag (earning them obvious comparisons to another recent viral craze: Labubu). In a joint press release, the two Swiss watchmakers boldly claimed the collection would “change the way we wear watches.”
Swatch’s policy of limiting purchase to one per customer did little to deter scalpers. The items immediately flooded resale sites over the weekend, with prices on watch marketplace Chrono24 ranging from around $1,200 to almost $6,000, at the time of writing.
Like other “high-low” collaborations — from Stella McCartney working with H&M to JW Anderson’s Uniqlo collections — the pitch to customers is clear: A chance to own an exclusive brand that might otherwise be out of reach. Costing either $400 or $420, depending on the model, Royal Pop offers an affordable take on an AP watch that typically costs — on the lower end — tens of thousands of dollars.
The appeal for Swatch is also self-evident. As well as attracting huge foot traffic to its stores, the company’s brand benefits from its association with one of the Switzerland’s most storied watchmakers. Parent company Swatch Group’s share price has jumped 15% in the last two weeks.
But what does Audemars Piguet stand to gain from the partnership?
Founded in 1875, AP is known for producing highly complex horological timepieces with limited production runs and notoriously long waiting lists. In December, one of its 1920s pocket watches, featuring a range of astronomical functions — including a display showing moon phases and a chart of constellations visible in the night sky — sold for over $7.7 million at Sotheby’s auction house.
Swatch, meanwhile, sells some entry-level models for less than $100, producing an estimated 3 million to 7 million watches a year, according to Swiss public broadcaster RTS. Founded in the 1980s, the brand is credited with saving the then-struggling Swiss watch industry by reinventing mechanical watches as reasonably priced fashion accessories amid competition from battery-driven quartz designs.
The partnership may help AP grow awareness among new and future customers — including the Gen-Z shoppers with whom Swatch proves especially popular. But many watch aficionados have questioned whether the family-run business risks cheapening its brand by appealing to customers who are unlikely to ever spend a five-figure sum on a watch.
“I don’t see how this works for a company that sells $40,000 watches,” reads one popular post on Reddit’s watchHotTakes forum, which has been awash with discussion about the collaboration. “Once people mentally associate the brand with $500 (sic), they’ll think $40,000 is insane. Ironically, the more successful the collaboration is, the stronger the association will be.”
Rumors of a partnership had been building since 2023, when AP’s official Instagram account cryptically commented “When do we launch?” on a post about Swatch’s collaboration with another Swiss watchmaker, Blancpain. AP’s former CEO François-Henri Bennahmias, who was at the helm at the time, also publicly praised the Omega x Swatch MoonSwatch collection, which saw long lines forming outside Swatch boutiques in 2022.
A proud Swatch fan (he previously revealed that he once owned a 1,200-strong collection of their watches before selling them back to the company in the 1990s), Bennahmias said in an interview with Luxury Tribune that the Omega collaboration was a “great idea” that did not “affect the integrity of Omega at all … because it educates the younger generation about the icons of watchmaking.”
Whether fights, mall frenzies and arrests change the calculation for AP is another matter altogether.
The-CNN-Wire
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