Swatch-Audemars Piguet collab sparks store closures as crowds overwhelm locations

Authorities deployed pepper spray on crowds queuing for the watch, indicating potential injuries and safety risks to consumers.

In the long human story of desire meeting scarcity, a $400 pocket watch born from the unlikely union of Swatch and Audemars Piguet became, in May 2026, a mirror held up to the strange alchemy of luxury, affordability, and collective longing. At shopping centers like Oak Brook Center Mall, hundreds of people pressed toward store entrances with an urgency that overwhelmed every ordinary measure of order, until the doors closed and law enforcement arrived with pepper spray. The Royal Pop was meant to be a timepiece; it became instead a question about what we are willing to endure — and inflict —

Swatch-Audemars Piguet collab sparks store closures as crowds overwhelm locations

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