What We Know
The cat is out of the bag on what is likely to be the biggest watch news of the year. The Swatch x Audemars Piguet “Royal Pop” just launched, ahead of its official availability on May 16, 2026, at selected Swatch stores. There are no wristwatches here, just eight unique pocket watches in two different styles, cased in brightly colored Royal Oak-shaped bioceramic cases, powered by manually wound mechanical SISTEM51 movements. Eight watches, for each side of the iconic Royal-Oak bezel.
All the UK 1:1 fake watches are instantly recognizable as Royal Oak-inspired. They have a “Petite Tapisserie” dial and a Royal Oak octagonal bezel with eight hexagonal screws. Every watch comes with a 40mm case (without the clip) and measures 44.2mm by 53.2mm when mounted in the clip. The thickness is 8.4mm. The hands and indices on all watches feature Grade-A Super-LumiNova.
The watches can be dropped in your pocket, popped into a holder attached to a calfskin lanyard (in three lengths), attached to a bag, or placed in a removable stand that lets the watch function as a desk clock. Swatch and AP say this will change the way we wear watches, breaking free from the wrist (suggesting the expected wristwatch collaboration is unlikely at the moment).
The new Swatch x Audemars Piguet “Royal Pop” comes in two main variants. There’s the “Lépine” style, where the crown is at 12 o’clock on the pocket watch, which come in six varieties: Otto Rosso (pink case and dial with red bezel), Huit Blanc (white case, dial, and bezel, with rainbow-colored indices and screws in eight colors, for the eight-sided bezel), Green Eight (green case and dial, with lime-green bezel), Orenji Hachi (navy case with orange/red screws, indices, and hands), and Ocho Negro (black dial and case, white bezel and indices).
The “Savonette” cases, or what Americans would be used to as “side-winder” cases, have a small seconds subsidiary dial and a crown at 3 o’clock (like you’d find on most wristwatches). They are the Lan Ba version, with a blue case and dial, a light blue bezel, crown, and small seconds, and the very vibrant OTG ROZ with a pink case, a yellow crown and bezel, a teal dial, pink subsidiary seconds, and black and yellow accents. A fun fact: if you get more than one best replica watches, you can swap them between cases. You can see all versions in the gallery above
Mechanically, these aren’t just simple plug-and-play movements. The new SISTEM51 manually-wound movement has 15 active patents, is made with a 100% automated system, is partially visible through a transparent caseback, is decorated in a pop-art style, and features a patented barrel drum design. When the barrel chambers are grey, they show the mainspring coils and the power reserve; when they are gold, the mainspring is fully wound. The watch has an over 90-hour power reserve, an anti-magnetic Nivachron balance spring (which is found in several AP models), and factory laser-based precision adjustment.
One watch will be available per person, per day, per store. And as of this morning, people were already lining up more than 120 hours before availability. The Lépine-style retails for $400 USD, and the Savonnette-style retails for $420 USD. Swiss copy Audemars Piguet watches will donate 100% of its proceeds to a dedicated initiative supporting the preservation and transmission of watchmaking savoir-faire, with a focus on rare skills and the next generation of horological talent.
What We Think
This feels like the best possible approach to a Swatch x Audemars Piguet collaboration. The perfect fake Audemars Piguet Royal Pop watches have all the whimsy you’d want from a Swatch—bright, punchy colors, playful wearability, and clever twists on Gérald Genta-inspired design. The branding is fun, and that’s the point. Even with all of its watchmaking bona fides, AP has never taken itself too seriously, and neither should its customers. Frankly, this just feels right. And in the process, a few million more people are suddenly going to learn what “Lépine” and “Savonette” mean.
The idea that it would be a “Jumbo” (even though the AI “leaks” featured bracelets that had no deployant or other clasp, couldn’t be removed from the bracelet, etc.) was just pure fantasy. Far be it from me to tell the masses to calm down, but I cannot imagine how this “cheapens” the brand identity as many online have been hand-wringing about (before they even knew what the collaboration was). I don’t see a massive market for Audemars Piguet Royal Oak pocket watches that will be crushed by this launch. If anything, it might bolster the demand a little bit.
I am Hodinkee’s current king of the “pocket watch agenda,” as my friends call it. I’m also a massive fan of buy Audemars Piguet clone watches, despite the naysayers that call it a mono-model brand. And need I remind you that not only did AP buy the most expensive and likely most important pocket watch made by the brand at auction last year for $7.7 million, but they also launched their first pocket watch (and a hyper-complicated one at that) in over a decade earlier in 2026. If there were a collaboration made for me, this would be it. Will I buy all eight? Probably not. Will I have to get at least a few? Yes, once the lines die down, which at this rate, could be any time between next week and Christmas. We’ll see how the demand goes.