We Got on Line for the Swatch x Audemars Piguet Collaboration
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There was an air of secrecy (and a cloud of weed) surrounding the line of dozens of people waiting outside Swatch’s Soho store to buy the new Swatch x Audemars Piguet (also known as AP) pocket watches. While the collection won’t be available for purchase until Saturday, May 16, some — including many who didn’t care about Swatch until this week, according to one person I interviewed — have been waiting on line since the relatively affordable Swiss watch brand releasedimages of the collaborationon Tuesday.
The Swatch x AP collection is the latest in a series of collaborations with high-end watchmakers such asOmegaandBlancpain, which have made otherwise luxury watches accessible (AP’s typically start at $25,000). The eight pocket watches in the Swatch collection combine design elements from the brand’s popularRoyal Oak watch— including the gridliketapisseriedial and octagonal bezel with its signature screws — and Swatch’sSistem51mechanical movement. The only way to buy one is by going in person to one of theselect Swatch stores across the countrycarrying the collaboration. In New York, that includes Swatch’s Times Square and Soho locations, the latter of which seemed like a “better shot,” according to Dariel Nunez, who had been waiting — and sleeping and eating and playing Pokémon — on line since 10 a.m. on Tuesday.
“I’m not a watch type of guy,” Nunez told me, but he says he’ll make an exception for watches that are “exclusive and limited” like this one and his limited-editionCasio G-Shock x Krink watch, which now resells for $700 on StockX. After all, he said, “AP is a good way to start a watch collection.” He’s planning to buy one of the pocket watches for himself to wear as a necklace, but Chan Briggs, a Tissot owner who was near the front of the line, told me he might eventually sell his. “A buddy told me to hold it down for a while,” he said. “There’s a secret to it. I’m not gonna tell you.” (I asked him to tell me the secret, but he wouldn’t share.)
Near the end of the line, college students Javier Flores and Bleart Ademi had only been waiting for about three hours by the time I talked to them on Thursday. “We’re like the 150th person [on line] because they’re gonna bring a bunch of friends,” Flores said about the people at the front. He heard rumors that the store would have 500 pocket watches in stock. If he could pick any color, he’d go for the light-blue Lan Ba to add to his watch collection, which currently includes some Fossils and a Cassio. “I really like the Royal Oak design, so I just thought it was a good time to get into some watches,” he said.
So far, Flores said, the line has been “pretty chill,” but he and Ademi weren’t sure how it would go overnight. “There’s a show calledSquid Games. I’d say this line is the closest thing to that dynamic,” Briggs said. “You don’t know how they’re going to act at night. So I haven’t been sleeping out here.” Instead, he’s been paying someone to sit in his seat while he sleeps at home. When I asked him what he brought to keep himself busy, he put it simply: “Weed and water.”
With just one more night until the collection is officially available for purchase, there’s a shared sentiment on line, both for line waiters planning to buy the watch to wear themselves and those who plan to sell: They’re finally going to own an Audemars Piguet watch. “AP, you don’t see yourself affording that, obviously. And we didn’t care about Swatch last week. So consumerism is very interesting,” said Briggs.
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