Alongside Patek Philippe and Vacheron Constantin, Audemars Piguet forms part of watchmaking’s so-called “Holy Trinity” – a rarefied tier of Swiss maisons more commonly linked to waiting lists, investment-grade steel sports watches and auction-house mythology than playful plastic objects. Its Royal Oak, in particular, has become a modern celebrity signifier, seen on the wrists of Hailey Bieber, Rihanna and Dua Lipa. Which is precisely what makes the new Audemars Piguet X Swatch collaboration feel so unexpected.
Called Royal Pop, the eight-watch collection transforms the Royal Oak (Gérald Genta’s 1972 luxury sports watch icon) into something far more irreverent: a brightly coloured Bioceramic pocket watch inspired by the original Swatch POP models of the 1980s. Complete with lanyards designed to be worn around the neck, clipped to a handbag or styled as a desk clock, the watches lean fully into current fashion appetite for accessories that feel slightly tongue in cheek. Think Miu-Miu coded handbag charms, but filtered through Swiss watchmaking. Priced at around £350, the Royal Pop collapses the distance between grail watch and impulse accessory.
The timing makes sense. Watches have increasingly escaped the wrist and entered the broader visual language of fashion. We’ve seen Hailey Bieber wear Marine Serre’s watch dress on the red carpet, while Taylor Swift wore a black diamond Lorraine Schwartz watch around her neck to the 2024 Grammys. The watch is no longer simply a tool or even a piece of jewellery. Increasingly, it functions as fashion hardware.
There is also a broader shift toward humour and colour within watchmaking itself. Rolex has experimented with emoji-inspired day wheels and multicoloured “Celebration” dials, while Richard Mille’s infamous Bon Bon collection turned high horology into a surreal candy shop. Against that backdrop, Royal Pop feels less shocking than inevitable.
Most importantly, though, the collaboration revives something central to early Swatch culture: the idea that watches could be expressive, inexpensive and genuinely fun. The original Swatch POP watches of the ’80s were tied to the same visual universe as Andy Warhol, Keith Haring and Memphis-era design – bold graphics, synthetic colour and pop-cultural excess. Royal Pop channels that spirit directly, spanning an entire rainbow spectrum across eight watches that feel closer to collectible fashion objects than traditional luxury timepieces.
