The rumors were true, folks: Swatch is yet again teaming up with a high-end, legacy brand on a new release that’s sure to set the watch world—not to mention the internet—ablaze. The Swiss maker has done it before with Swatch Group stablemates Omega and Blancpain, but this time around it’s even more surprising. Because the collaborator is Audemars Piguet, the privately owned watchmaker that, in 1972, with the help of designer Gérald Genta, created the Royal Oak. The design is coveted by A-listers, extremely hard to acquire, and doesn’t come cheap. If recent history is anything to go by, the new “Royal Pop” collab with Swatch should be relatively affordable, though it’ll probably still be damn difficult to score one because it’s releasing only in selected stores, all of which are sure to stock only limited numbers. And here’s the other thing: We still don’t know exactly what the Royal Pop will look like. That hasn’t stopped people from getting extremely excited, though. Here’s what we know so far.
—Jonathan Evans, style director
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The Swiss brand has been teasing a partnership with the luxury watchmaker.
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Last week, a pair of mysterious adverts appeared in the Guardian teasing a new release from the Swatch Group. Given that the cryptic visuals closely mirrored the original rollout of the wildly popular MoonSwatch in 2022, people naturally started to speculate about a new collaboration. But who would it be this time?
Now we finally have our answer: Audemars Piguet. Specifically, an affordable new take on the marque’s legendary Royal Oak.
“Introducing Audemars Piguet x Swatch, a disruptive collaboration that fuses joyful boldness and positive provocation with the art of haute horlogerie,” reads a new teaser released by the brands last night, alongside the words “Royal Pop.”
So, where does “pop” come into all of this—and what could it mean for Swatch’s take on AP's most popular model?
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Making a Maine lobster roll is a simple thing. Heat up the grill. Melt some butter in a split-top bun. Pack in a quarter pound of claw meat, a slap of mayo, and warm lemon butter, and mix in a proprietary seafood seasoning. In 2010, this was my routine. I worked at the original Luke’s Lobster location in New York City’s East Village. The shop was the size of a closet. Customers hung out at the counter. As I blissfully hustled in that tiny restaurant, I didn’t know I was working in the heyday of authentic, chef-driven, fast-casual dining.
The initial pitch that launched Luke’s Lobster in 2009 matched the locavore times. Cofounder Luke Holden’s father, Jeff, owned Portland Shellfish. Momofuku’s David Chang was number three on Esquire’s list of the most influential people of the 21st century. Baohaus’s Eddie Huang was doing interviews at Bonnaroo, underscoring the rock ’n’ roll nature of the scene.
Many of these spots have been phased out. The Covid-19 pandemic was the final nail in the takeout box. Restaurants closed down or pivoted to online orders and delivery to survive. Armed with corporate supply chains and national infrastructure, faceless yet ubiquitous “slop bowl” restaurants like Cava, Sweetgreen, and Chipotle took over lunch tables. Unlike a typical customer-facing chain like Applebees or Chili’s, slop bowl spots require you to stand in front of an assembly line, making itemized choices that culminate in an ultimately indiscernible bowl of mush.
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Not to sound like a black-light-poster-and-bong enthusiast, but have you ever thought about the buttons on your button-down collar? Like, really thought about them? How about the top button on your sport coat that doesn’t seem like it’s supposed to be buttoned? And not to blow your mind or anything, but why do we cuff trousers, anyway?
How did these things come to be in the first place? Why did they become preppy stalwarts? And whether you vibe with Ivy style or not, how should you be considering them when it comes to your own look? Those are the questions I set out to answer after realizing, upon looking at a photo of a very stylish guy in a three-roll-two jacket, that I had no firm conception of how the sartorial quirk—in which the top button of a three-button jacket “rolls” under the lapel so it buttons like a two-button jacket—came to be.
When exploring the origins of clothes, lore and legend abound. Sometimes a story is so good that it becomes a part of the very (ahem) fabric of menswear mythology, even when it’s not true. That said, the explanations here are the most plausible I could find, and they’re cosigned by the experts. So let’s find out where these damn things come from—and how to wear them now.
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