The Audemars Piguet x Swatch Collaboration Is Here for Real

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.”

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, 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.

To go with the calfskin lanyards, there will purportedly also be longer lanyards and desk clock holders (in eight colors, naturally) available online. The 8.4-mm thick Royal Pop measures 40 mm without being snapped into its bioceramic holder clip, and 44.2 mm by 53.2 mm when it's in it.

Classic design elements from AP’s iconic Royal Oak are indeed present, most strikingly the octagonal bezel with eight visible screws. The Royal Pop dials also heavily reference the “Petite Tapisserie” pattern on the dial of most Royal Oaks. The movement is partially visible thanks to the transparent case back. The Savonnette style also features a dial with a small seconds subdial at 6 o’clock.

The teaser campaign has been doing a lot of heavy lifting for both Swatch and Audemars Piguet. Early footage showed colorful lanyards and looped straps—what you'd expect to clip to a pocket watch, not strap to a wrist. This did not stop countless social media accounts from posting AI image-generated versions of their dream designs, almost all of which were exact replicas of a Royal Oak wristwatch in bright colors and made almost entirely from Swatch's bioceramic composite.

This pocket watch version might well be a disappointment to some who wanted a wristwatch, but it is a direct callback to a 1986 Swatch line whose watches could eject from their frames to function as brooches, bag clips, or pocket watches. It also does not seem to have stopped queues already forming outside Swatch stores, scenes reminiscent of 2022 when Swatch announced its smash-hit Omega MoonSwatch collaboration.