Sneakers, phones, and limited editions of anything have been in a long line in Dubai. But the event was the launch of the Swatch x Audemars Piguet in Dubai on Saturday, May 16, which the city rarely sees. A group of people were outside a mall in a campout wearing sleeping bags, folding chairs, power banks, and packed food.
Not a supercar. Not an apartment. A watch priced between AED 1,470 and AED 1,540.
Then after everything else, the sale was called off.
Why Was There a Queue?
All this devotion was for Royal Pop, the joint venture of Swatch and Audemars Piguet. Audemars Piguet is one Switzerland’s most well-known and legendary independent watchmakers among the brands from the laguna, and their watches often sell for tens of thousands of dollars. Swatch is a brand that made colorful plastic watches readily accessible by every teenager of the 80s. They have developed something special together.
The Royal Pop is NOT a wristwatch. It is a modern pocket watch, made from bioceramic, with 8 colours, which can be worn on the lanyard, put in the pocket or used as a desk watch. The watch features the hallmark AP design (octagonal bezel with a Royal Oak, Petite Tapisserie dial). It has a hand-wound Sistem51 movement with 90 hours of power reserve. Moreover, it is, by any criterion, the most accessible introduction to the Audemars Piguet world ever.
It is not sold in any other stores in the UAE except the Swatch shops at Dubai Mall and Mall of the Emirates. The store limited each person to buying one watch a day, one a store. Two stores. Limited stock. Global hype. The outcome was entirely predictable.
Night Before Swatch x AP Dubai Drop
It did not start at 5AM, as the viral videos suggested. It started the evening before. One person commenting on the now-viral reel by @harisdiaries confirmed he was at the Dubai Mall on Friday at 9PM and already found people settled in with foldable chairs and power banks. The creator himself was at the mall by 8PM for groceries and a movie. “Yes, they had sleeping bags, foldable chairs and food too,” he confirmed in the replies. These were not early risers. These were people who simply never went to sleep.
By Saturday morning, the queues at both malls were not just long, they were chaotic. Rishi Navani camped for five hours at the Mall of the Emirates parking lot. Then he moved to the Dubai Mall parking for over two hours. “Absolute chaos,” he told Gulf News. Tayyab Naveed, a photographer and Dubai resident, had planned to join the queue but watched videos of the morning scenes from home and reconvinced himself. “I really wanted to get one for myself. I wanted to keep it as a collectible,” he told The National. He went home without it.
Miitra Gesota, who made it into the queue at Mall of the Emirates, described the crowd around him. “In the queue with me were first timers who wanted to get the watch for the brand name and also to resell,” he told The National. Someone in the comments section of the viral reel put it more bluntly. “Not the collectors. They are resellers.” The post’s creator replied with a single word: “Exactly.”
Swatch x Audemars Piguet: The Cancellation
For those who stayed in line, the ending was brutal. Swatch posted a brief statement to its regional Instagram account: “In view of public safety considerations, we have decided not to proceed with the sale of the product at Dubai Mall and Mall of the Emirates, and the event has been cancelled. We appreciate your understanding and continued support.” People who had waited eighteen hours read those words on their phones while still standing in line.
The Swatch x Audemars Piguet Dubai cancellation was not an isolated incident. The same scene unfolded city by city around the world as the global drop went live timezone by timezone. Singapore opened its store, sold a stock of just 40 pieces, and immediately shut, leaving hundreds of people who had camped for over 24 hours furious.
Authorities in Mumbai and New Delhi cancelled launches before stores even opened, citing crowd safety failures. Police were deployed in Geneva to allow the launch to proceed in the brands’ home country. Video from Milan showed scuffles between security and crowds five minutes before the store was due to open.
This has not been Swatch’s first appearance here. In 2022, police were called to the London Carnaby Street store within half an hour of opening for the Omega Speedmaster MoonSwatch collaboration that went on sale at just $260. In Dubai, the watch had a resale value over AED 4,000, more than 20 times the original retail price of AED 950. The Swatch x Audemars Piguet Dubai drop was always going to end up this way. The only question was if the brands had prepared differently. Based on Saturday, they had not.
What’s Next For Swatch x Audemars Piguet
No new UAE sale date has been confirmed by either Swatch or Audemars Piguet as of Saturday afternoon. Some collectors speculate the brands will shift to an online pre-registration system or a quieter in-store drop with no advance announcement. Neither brand has addressed the crowd management failures publicly.
Audemars Piguet announced it will give away 100 percent of its proceeds from the Royal Pop collaboration to an initiative supporting watchmaking skills and new horological talent. That is a truly valuable commitment. And it’s also a detail that is probably very far away right now for the hundreds of people who spent their Friday night on a parking lot floor in Dubai.
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