AP x Swatch | 1:1 Not original

AP x Swatch Co-branded Pocket Watch 

The Royal Pop is a series of eight Bioceramic pocket watches that pull on the design language of the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Pocket Watch reference 5691, not the wristwatch. That distinction matters more than anything else about this launch, and we will come back to it. Each piece is 40 mm across and 8.4 mm thick, but when clipped into its leather lanyard and Bioceramic holder, the package measures 44.2 mm by 53.2 mm. 

This piece is very versatile, able to be worn around the neck, attached to a bag, dropped into a pocket, or stood up on a small, removable mount as a desk clock.

Six of the eight are Lépine pocket watches with the crown at 12 o'clock and hour and minute hands only, whilst the remaining two are Savonnette pocket watches with the crown at 3 o’clock and a small seconds sub-dial at 6 o'clock. 

The octagonal bezel and eight hexagonal screws are present on every variant, as is the Petite Tapisserie waffle pattern on the dial that AP collectors have been staring at on the wrist since 1972. There is no factory wrist strap option, so Swatch has left the door open for third-party makers, but is not selling one itself.

The eight references and their colourways are listed below. Notably, the naming of each model is multilingual on purpose, each translating loosely to the number eight, a nod to the bezel screw count.