The Royal Pop Drop: Tales from the Launch of the Audemars Piguet x Swatch Collaboration

On March 24, 2022, Swatch announced that it was releasing the Omega x Swatch Speedmaster MoonSwatch collection. There would be 11 versions, all based on the nine planets, plus the Sun and the Moon. Best of all, this watch was priced at $260. So, I pitched a story about what it would be like to wait in line for this now historic collaboration.

TL;DR: The hype and scarcity continued throughout the spring and summer, and I was still waiting in line when I finally snagged a Venus in August.

In fact, it wasn’t until February 2023 that I could casually walk into a Swatch Boutique and buy an Earth (the model I wanted most) without queuing up.

Fast forward to last week’s announcement that Swatch’s third cross-brand collaboration (after the Bioceramic Scuba Fifty Fathoms done in collaboration with Blancpain) would be a pocket watch version of the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak.

So, once again, I headed out to wait in line and take the temperature of the would-be Swatch x AP Royal Pop buyers. Four years later, it was a very different scene.

In 2022, the rollout of the MoonSwatch was limited to a very select group of shops. Here in Toronto, the only location selling the collection was Swatch’s boutique in the Eaton Centre. Back then, the line seemed to snake around the entire downtown mall.

This time, four boutiques in the Toronto area had the timepiece on offer. So, to better my odds, I decided to visit each location in advance to see which one had the shortest line. I started with the Swatch store furthest away from my house: Fairview Park in Don Mills.

(Full disclosure: Because I didn’t want to camp out with a laptop, I typed out all my notes on my phone. Because I was tired and frazzled, I left it on a bus. I’m reconstructing the story as best I can, using only my memories and DMs I sent my husband during my adventures.)
 

My heart jumped when I arrived. There was absolutely no line! I had read some naysayers predicting that interest in the Royal Pop would plummet once the hypebeasts discovered that it wasn’t a wristwatch. I didn’t believe it, but there I was with seeming proof that the “Debbie Downers” were correct.

So, I walked into the boutique to have the battery for my MoonSwatch replaced (a service that dedicated Swatch stores provide for free) and get some intel from the employees about the plans for the scheduled Saturday AM drop.

Well, the reason there was no line, they explained, was that lining up in the mall was not permitted. Instead, the store was going to organize a line outside of the mall starting at 9:00 pm that night. Then, the next morning, when the mall opens, the queue will be escorted in.
 

They also told me that, since the Royal Pop was not a limited edition, if someone didn’t want to wait in line, they should be able to get one in a couple of months. In the meantime, would I prefer to buy the Blancpain collab?

Should I stay here? On the one hand, the Fairview Mall itself is a nice mall, with a tremendous food court. However, on the minus side, it is in the middle of nowhere. If I got hungry or had to use the bathroom, I would be in trouble

Next, I returned to the scene of my initial Swatch-related FoMo experience, the Toronto Eaton Centre, a humongous mall in Downtown Toronto. And there was a line outside on the sidewalk.

I asked the folks at the front of the line how long they had been camping out, and they replied that it had been since 8:45 the night before. On Instagram, some watch news outlets were reporting that people had been camping out since Tuesday, so it didn’t seem like this launch was as hyped as the Omega collab.
 

I estimated that there are about 25 people in line. While they were all parked in folding camp chairs, they were an eclectic mix of flippers, people hired on Task Rabbit to wait in line, and fanboys. There was even a local TikTok watch influencer whose claim to fame was making a customized G-Shock for Drake’s son. He was there not for the watch but for the content.

One of the Task Rabbiters told me that, in their opinion, there was not much profit to be made from flipping. That is because they had been told that there would be a strict one-watch-per-person policy; thus, paying someone like her $250 bucks a day to wait in line was more than half the cost of the watch. Her client was just a collector who would gladly pay to say they were first
 

I liked the vibe of this line. Everyone seemed collegial. And although I forgot to ask about the bathroom situation, I might come back.

Yorkdale is Toronto’s poshest mall. It not only has a Swatch store but also Rolex, Tudor, Breitling, Piaget, Vacheron Constantin, and Jaeger-LeCoultre boutiques. Again, people are not being allowed to line up inside the mall, but a small crowd has assembled outside the store to look at the Royal Pops in the window.

I overhear one youth exclaim: “Swatch did an Omega collaboration too?”

Another kid tries to educate his friend on the magnitude of this collaboration: “Audemars Piguet is, like, Rolex level.” Of course, a true watch snob would be greatly offended, but as far as brand recognition goes, Omega and Rolex are the names they know. It’s definitely a win for AP to crack this code.
 

I then went outside to see if I could spot potential buyers. They were easy to identify by the camp chairs and white plastic bags filled with takeaway containers. While I was there, a guy wearing socks and slides emerged from the mall and told them that mall security had told him the official line doesn’t start until 9:00 pm and that it would be formed at an entirely different entrance. He dropped that bomb, then just walked away.

The little crowd doesn’t budge. They think the “socks and sandals” guy is trying to trick them into losing their spot. So, I go back into the mall and check in with security. “Socks and slides” guy wasn’t lying. The guard further informed me that people in the official line would be given tickets and then let into the mall 10 people at a time. All very orderly. All very organized.
 

I thought about skipping the fourth mall and just setting up at Yorkdale. After all, Yorkdale has a Cineplex, so I could catch a late screening and then join the line at midnight. Then I got a phone call. Family emergency. I left for home.

On the bus ride back, one of the passengers is dressed head-to-toe as a Pokémon character, and I can’t help but feel like this is an omen of some kind. Do I really have to catch ‘em all?

After a dark and restless night, I awoke on Saturday morning to birdsong and a glorious sunrise. I took this as a good omen and caught the bus out to the last of the GTA locations, Sherway Gardens in Etobicoke.

Unsurprisingly, there was a line. I made friends with a group of well-dressed middle-aged ladies who looked like they were going to church. They are handbag collectors and were hoping to score a Royal Pop as a purse charm.

Behind me are two lads in their late teens/early twenties who just decided to check out the line on a whim. “What else are you gonna do on a Saturday morning?” We were all having a great time.

Because the line formed around the building, there was a sharp corner that meant we couldn’t physically see the end of the line. So, as the ladies and I settled comfortably on an outdoor bench, the boys took turns running recon for us. They estimated there were about 150 people ahead of us.

After an hour, there is movement, and we all move ahead about 20 places. Based on my experience queuing up for the MoonSwatch, this was around the same time a Swatch rep came out and announced that there were only 200 pieces available, then walked down the line counting until they reached 100 (because at that time people were allowed to buy two pieces) and told the rest of the line to go home.

Because there were 150 people in front of us, I felt like my odds were good.
 

His friend turned to the internet for more intel, and, according to Instagram, Swatch stores all over were closing and canceling the launch. A friend of a friend of a friend even messaged him to say that they had already dispersed the Eaton Centre line.

Then more reports came in from the front of the line: About twenty flippers had been pressed up against the glass entry doors. Someone from security was telling them that if they just organized themselves, they would get a watch. Still, they are not budging. Supposedly, the crowd at the front was even threatened with the police.

Then someone made the call, and now nobody was getting a watch.

A few police wagons pull up, and the whole crowd is told to vacate the property or be arrested. Promptly, a convoy of Mercedes and BMWs from outside the province (and even from outside the country) quickly peeled out of the parking garage, with one almost hitting a kid in a stroller.

Most, including my line pals, walked glumly away. A few people lingered behind, thinking that once the bad apples leave, they might let normal folks in. Meanwhile, a pile of abandoned folding chairs and pizza boxes sat outside the entrance, a depressing monument to what could have been a joyous occasion.
 

Sadly, it seems that scenes like this played out all over the world. But I’m not here to provide analysis, only to bear witness. At this point, I was so exhausted that I couldn’t even be bothered to see if the Fairview Park and Yorkdale Swatch boutiques had also been shut down (turns out that only the Sherway Gardens and Fairview Park locations were closed because of “public safety considerations”).

Me? I got back on the bus. I went back to bed. I fell into a deep sleep.