The 2 iconic Swiss brands collaborated on these brash watches-on-a-lanyard, which are multicoloured mash-ups of the Royal Oak and Pop collections
It’s been the talk of the horological world all year. The results are now here of the much-discussed collaboration between two of Switzerland’s most iconic watchmaking names, and ones that usually make very different types of watches: Audemars Piguet and Swatch. With Royal Pop, they’ve created a collection that has something to delight everyone.
Royal Pop pocket watches in Green Eight. Photo: Handout
The collection’s special alchemy is to perfectly blend the very best bits of two of the world’s most coveted collections – Audemars Piguet’s Royal Oak and Swatch’s Pop. The former – the work of the greatest of all watchmakers, Gérald Genta – revolutionised watchmaking when it debuted in 1972, and contributes its trademark octagonal case and eight screws around the bezel to Royal Pop. The latter, an icon of the 1980s, lends the collection its wild, brightly coloured, pop art-influenced aesthetic.
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All eight models in the Royal Pop collection. Photo: Handout
The boldest move Audemars Piguet and Swatch have made with Royal Pop was to move away from wristwatches altogether. Instead, the collection consists of pocket watches that can be worn in any number of ways, and that come with a calfskin lanyard that can be adjusted to three different lengths – and even with a stand that transforms them into desk clocks.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder: Swatch x AP Royal Pop campaign artwork. Photo: Handout
Royal Pop comes in eight models, an echo of that trademark octagonal case and eight screws. Each is in a different colour: Green Eight and Lan Ba contrast green and blue cases respectively with bezels in lighter shades of the same colours, while Otto Rosso marries a pink case with a cherry-red bezel. Blaue Acht combines a lime-green case with a light-blue bezel, Ocho Negro pairs a black case with a white bezel; and Orenji Hachi is even more monochromatic, with case and bezel both in navy. Otg Roz is the biggest colour blast of the lot, with a pink case and yellow bezel; and Huit Blanc matches a white case and bezel with eight screws in different colours.
Back of Royal Pop watch in Otg Roz colourway. Photo: Handout
Six of them, with the winding crown at 12 o’clock, have just hours and minutes hands, while Lan Ba and Otg Roz, with winding crowns at 3 o’clock, come with a small seconds subdial at 6 o’clock. All of them boast Royal Oak’s signature petite tapisserie dial pattern of tiny, densely packed squares.
The cases and crowns are made of super strong, super smooth bioceramic, while a transparent caseback shows off the Sistem51 movement, in a new hand-wound version that gives over 90 hours of power reserve.
