I think they know exactly what they're doing
In cities across the world on a May weekend, thousands of people queued for days — and in some cases came to blows — over a £335 pocket watch born from the union of a mass-market Swiss brand and its luxury counterpart. The Royal Pop collection, a collaboration between Swatch and Audemars Piguet, became less a product launch than a mirror held up to contemporary consumer culture: its reflection showing the volatile alchemy of engineered scarcity, aspirational branding, and the human hunger to possess something that feels, however briefly, rare. When tear gas drifted through the streets of Paris and resellers walked away with four-figure profits, the watch itself almost ceased to matter — what remained was the older, harder question of where desire ends and responsibility begins.
- Police fired tear gas into a crowd of 300 outside a Paris Swatch store, while punches were thrown in Lille and security teams lost control at locations across Asia, the Middle East, and Europe.
- A week of pre-launch camping, multi-day queues, and reports of shoppers falling unwell revealed that the hype machine had outrun any crowd management plan Swatch had in place.
- The moment watches hit shelves, a shadow economy ignited — buyers were approached by resellers before they'd left the store, and £335 watches appeared on eBay for up to £5,000 within hours.
- Swatch responded by closing stores for safety, then issued a statement calling the reaction 'phenomenal' and noting chaos touched only 20 of 220 locations — a framing critics found tone-deaf given the injuries and police deployments.
- The company pointed to its 2022 MoonSwatch launch as precedent and promised the collection would remain on sale for months, but the assurance did little to settle the debate over whether the pandemonium was an oversight or a strategy.
On a Saturday in May, Swatch and Audemars Piguet released the Royal Pop collection — a pocket watch priced at £335, positioned as a bridge between mass-market accessibility and luxury prestige. The launch had been months in the making, fed by a careful social media campaign designed to stoke exclusivity and cultural cachet. Retail analysts noted that Swatch had executed the anticipation masterfully. What followed, however, tested the limits of that mastery.
In Paris, police fired tear gas at a crowd of 300 gathered outside a Swatch store. In Lille, four people were punched in the crush. Across Amsterdam, Milan, New York, and cities throughout Asia and the Middle East, scuffles broke out and stores closed their doors as security lost control. People had camped outside locations for up to a week. The one-watch-per-person rule, intended to manage demand, only sharpened the frenzy.
Once the watches sold, a secondary market erupted almost immediately. Buyers were approached by resellers the moment they stepped outside. One buyer told the BBC he purchased a watch and flipped it for just over £1,000 the following day, with plans to return using friends to bypass purchase limits. Listings on eBay reached between £3,000 and £5,000, though trade publications warned some reflected counterfeits.
Opinions on whether any of it was warranted split sharply. Some buyers spoke of the watch as a future heirloom or investment. Others, like an 18-year-old in Birmingham, were unmoved: she didn't think the watch justified the wait or the price. Watch reviewer Britt Pearce, who had arrived at the London launch with genuine enthusiasm for the collaboration, left with her feelings soured. 'I think they know exactly what they're doing,' she said of Swatch — implying the chaos was not a miscalculation but a feature.
Swatch's Monday statement called the global response 'phenomenal' and noted that disruption had affected only 20 of 220 stores. The company drew a parallel to its 2022 MoonSwatch launch with Omega, which had similarly triggered police presence and closures, and assured the public the collection would remain available for months. The reassurance landed awkwardly against images of tear gas and injured shoppers — leaving unresolved the question of how much responsibility a brand bears when the desire it deliberately cultivates spills into harm.
On a Saturday in May, Swatch and Audemars Piguet released a watch that would send thousands into the streets. The Royal Pop collection—a collaboration between the Swiss mass-market brand and its luxury counterpart—went on sale in selected stores worldwide, and within hours, the scale of demand became impossible to manage. Police in Paris fired tear gas at a crowd of 300 people outside a Swatch shop. In Lille, four people reported being punched in the crush. Stores closed their doors. Security guards lost control. By Monday, the company was issuing statements about what had gone wrong.
The watch itself cost £335. It was a pocket watch, part of what Swatch called "a disruptive collaboration between two icons of Swiss watchmaking." The company had spent months building anticipation through social media campaigns, tapping into younger shoppers' appetite for exclusivity, limited editions, and the kind of brand partnerships that feel like cultural moments. Retail experts noted that Swatch had executed the hype masterfully. Catherine Shuttleworth, a retail analyst, told the BBC the company had done "a fantastic job in teasing the product." For many buyers, the appeal was straightforward: a fraction of the price of a typical Audemars Piguet watch, but with the prestige of the name attached.
What Swatch may not have anticipated—or what some critics argue it deliberately engineered—was the frenzy that followed. People camped outside stores for a week in New York. In Amsterdam and Milan, scuffles broke out. Reports came in from cities across Asia and the Middle East of crowds overwhelming retail locations. The company had limited sales to one watch per person, but that constraint only intensified the scramble. By Friday night in London, security staff were visibly struggling to manage the growing throngs of people waiting for Saturday's release.
Once the watches hit the market, a secondary economy erupted almost instantly. Britt Pearce, a watch reviewer and podcaster, witnessed people leaving stores being immediately approached by resellers offering double or triple what they had just paid. Jaylen, a buyer the BBC spoke with, purchased a watch on Sunday and sold it for just over £1,000—a profit of several hundred pounds. He told the BBC he was planning to return and buy more, using friends to circumvent the one-per-person rule. On eBay, Royal Pop watches appeared listed for £3,000 to £5,000. WatchPro, a UK watch trade magazine, cautioned that some of these astronomical prices reflected counterfeit listings, but the resale market was undeniably real and lucrative.
The question of whether the watches were worth any of this became the central tension of the story. Ahmed, another buyer, was thinking in longer-term investment terms. He planned to hold his watch, betting that once production ended and supply dried up, the value would climb significantly. Others who had queued for days spoke of the watch as something treasurable, a limited collectible that might appreciate over time or become a family heirloom. But not everyone was convinced. Tabassum, 18, told BBC Newsbeat in Birmingham that she didn't think the watch justified the wait or the money. Her friend Meredith simply asked: "What's the fuss about?"
Britt Pearce had initially been excited about the collaboration—two respected watchmakers joining forces seemed like it might deepen public interest in horology. But her experience at the London store changed her perspective. "I would say going there and being a part of it did sour my feelings," she said. She was more direct about the company's role: "I think they know exactly what they're doing," she said of Swatch, suggesting the chaos was not accidental but a calculated part of the marketing strategy. Shuttleworth, by contrast, argued that Swatch could not have foreseen violence breaking out.
Swatch's response came on Monday. The company issued a statement saying the response had been "phenomenal worldwide" and that problems had occurred in only 20 of the 220 stores where the watches went on sale. It drew a parallel to the 2022 MoonSwatch collaboration with Omega, which had also triggered police involvement and store closures. The company added that the Royal Pop collection would remain available for several months, suggesting that the initial scarcity was temporary and that anyone willing to wait would eventually get a chance to buy. But the damage to the brand's reputation—and the broader question of whether a £335 watch was worth police deploying tear gas—remained unresolved. The frenzy had revealed something about modern consumer culture: the power of scarcity, the allure of collaboration, and the willingness of companies to harness desire even when it spills into chaos.
Notable Quotes
The hype has worked. The watch was aspirational, with shoppers able to pay a fraction of the usual cost for an AP product.— Catherine Shuttleworth, retail expert
I think they know exactly what they're doing. Swatch seemed to be creating dangerous situations for people to collect a watch.— Britt Pearce, watch reviewer and podcaster
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why did a watch that costs £335 cause police to use tear gas?
Because Swatch spent months building hype around exclusivity and limited availability. When the watch finally went on sale, thousands of people showed up at once, convinced they had to buy it that day or miss out forever. The company had created a sense that this was a cultural moment, not just a product.
But couldn't they have just sold it online to avoid the crowds?
That's what critics asked. If Swatch had put it on their website, there would have been no chaos, no police, no people sleeping in tents. But the in-store scarcity was part of the appeal. It made the watch feel rare and desirable. Some people think that was intentional.
What happened to the people who actually bought the watches?
Many of them sold them immediately for three or four times the price. Someone bought one for £335 on Sunday and sold it for over £1,000 by the end of the day. Others are holding onto theirs, betting the value will climb once production stops. A few people just wanted the watch because they liked it.
Did Swatch apologize for what happened?
Not really. They said the chaos only happened at 20 out of 220 stores, and compared it to a previous collaboration that also caused problems. They suggested people were overreacting and that the watches would be available for months. But by then, the resale market had already priced them at thousands of pounds.
Do you think the watches are actually worth that much?
That depends on what you mean by worth. As objects, they're well-made. As investments, they might appreciate if they become truly rare. As cultural artifacts, they're interesting precisely because they caused so much chaos. But as a £335 watch? Most people would say no, it's not worth a week of camping or a punch in the ribs.
Will this happen again?
Probably. Swatch proved that hype works. The next time a luxury brand collaborates with a mass-market one and creates scarcity, people will line up. The question is whether companies will learn to manage it better, or whether they'll keep engineering these moments because the publicity is worth the risk.