Is the Royal Pop the Best or Worst Thing to Happen to Audemars Piguet?

This is an edition of the newsletter Box + Papers, Cam Wolf’s weekly deep dive into the world of watches. Sign up here.Watch collectors can’t resist a good nickname. So, when Audemars Piguet and Swatch announced their forthcoming Royal Pop collaboration, a colorful set of eight pocketwatches, it brought out the community’s worst schoolyard-bully instincts. Royal Flop, Royal Broke, Royal Joke—you get it. Detractors believed it was a death rattle for one of Switzerland’s once-great brands. That’s not to say the collaboration isn’t without its supporters; just look at the folks who’ve been lined up for days to get one. Team Royal Pop believes the watch could be a gateway drug for many future watch collectors, specifically those who grew up fantasizing about owning a real Royal Oak. Today, I’m exploring both perspectives—think of it like high school debate class, except we don’t have to relitigate the efficacy of trickle-down economics. (YAWN!)The Royal Pop Is the Worst Thing to Happen to Audemars PiguetJust when I thought I’d heard them all, collector Hannah Luo (@crazykirbyh) found fresh inspiration for a Royal Pop moniker. “This collaboration is going to be a fad,” Luo says. When the general public is sick of this fad, and the plastic Royal Pop is no longer Royal, it turns into Royal Poop.”Many of the arguments against the Royal Oak center in the idea that the watch will send AP and its flagship model to eternal damnation; that the effect of having $400 “Bioceramic” versions of the RO will forever stain the brand’s reputation. Luo argues that the effect is especially amplified for a brand like Audemars Piguet, which makes other watches I have affection for, but is largely propped up financially by the Royal Oak.“Is a successful businessman who has $50,000 to $150,000 to spend on a high-end luxury watch really going to want to own a watch that bears the same name as a plastic novelty piece that they can buy at the Swatch store that his loser nephew who lives in his sister's basement wears?” says the always-candid dealer Kevin O’Dell.While the MoonSwatch has clearly been a boon for Omega in terms of bringing new collectors into the brand’s universe, O’Dell believes the equation is different when it comes to the Royal Oak. I’ll admit that upon first hearing about the collaboration, it was one of the first thoughts that crossed my mind as well: the Speedmaster has always been a more populist watch. It’s a titan of the industry, venerated for its role in NASA’s Apollo missions. “Omega was always a working man's watch brand,” O’Dell says. “They were always a brand that you could aspire to one day own.”The Royal Oak, meanwhile, is a watch largely built on the idea of scarcity and exclusivity. Production is limited due to how labor-intensive they are to build, and very few people can actually afford one. Early advertisements literally sold the Royal Oak on the idea that it was expensive. “You're looking at the costliest stainless steel watch in the world,” one advert from 1974 reads. Another (emphasis mine): “What makes steel more valuable than gold?...A watch which is unmistakably rare and precious.” We’re a long way from 1974, but signaling success and distancing themselves from the masses still clearly matters to some collectors. “The whole point of luxury goods in the first place is for them to only be accessible to a niche group of ultra-wealthy individuals,” O’Dell says.But that’s not the only argument against the Royal Pop. O’Dell argues that the collaboration symbolizes a deeper rot across the entire industry. “They’ve run out of ideas,” the dealer says of the brands. “They have no more substance. They have no more real passion for watches.” While he admits the collaboration will undoubtedly get clicks, he worries these heritage brands are more concerned with hype than craft, creativity, legacy, and actual watchmaking.Others have more straightforward concerns about the mass production of a theoretically disposable watch. “What was offensive about the project wasn’t the design or brand implications, it’s the disposability,” says Austin Rogers, the collector and content creator @Rehaut. “For me at least, watches are an island in a sea of manufactured obsolescence, so a plastic—sorry, Bioceramic—Royal Oak that can’t be serviced feels off.”Right before news of AP and Swatch’s collaboration broke, O’Dell just so happened to pick up a Royal Oak he intended to sell. It’s currently being serviced before hitting the market, but he’s already trying to figure out the effect the Royal Pop might have on its eventual sale. “I’m going to try to price it the same,” he says. “I mean, I’m definitely not going to price it higher, that’s for sure.”The Royal Pop Is the Best Thing to Happen to Audemars PiguetThe folks who seem to be doing the least hand-wringing about the Royal Pop? Actual Royal Oak owners. Albert Coombs, the collector and cofounder of Official CP Time, who has owned several versions of the watch, is thinking about adding one back to his rotation now. “Collaborations like this don’t make me less interested in the brand,” he says. “They actually remind people why AP has remained such an important part of modern watch culture in the first place.”Coombs’s point is a good one. Despite its long waitlists and sky-high prices, the Royal Oak has always played nicely with mass pop culture—something that can’t be said for other watch brands. Over the years, AP has reworked the Offshore variant of the RO with Marvel to feature Spider-Man and Black Panther, LeBron James, and for Arnold Scwarznegger and his 1999 movie End of Days. The comment sections for those watches could be copied and pasted onto today’s Royal Pop discourse: “AP will lose its touch soon,” someone wrote in response to James’s limited edition. “I will be selling my AP RO as soon as possible after seeing this!!”I spoke with someone today who owns Royal Oaks but has no real connection to the watch world. He said he wanted to buy every single one of the Royal Pops to mix and match with his outfits, and the idea that it would somehow cheapen the current pieces in his collection seemed ludicrous. With the Royal Oak and Royal Pop, Audemars Piguet has created something that many, many people want, he said—and that’s supposed to be a bad thing?Some dealers who are actually in the business of selling Royal Oaks also see the new collaboration as a boon. Very Special’s Juan Diego Lavalle says the collaboration will “prop up the Royal Oak, especially good for vintage [models], which had a very weak auction turnout this past weekend.”Even some of the haters slightly softened when they saw the product’s final form. “Because it's a pocket watch, I really don't know that it's going to hurt the market,” O’Dell offered. Plus, “AP has made it clear their cut is being reinvested into emerging watchmaking talent, which is a very cool move,” Rogers says.Beyond the short-term effects of selling an unprecedented amount of watches, there are potentially multiple long-term benefits of a collaboration like this. The first and most important might be creating a whole future generation of collectors obsessed with the Royal Oak. Coombs adds that such a strategy might be even more important for a brand like AP, which leans so hard on the Royal Oak. “When you have one design that iconic, you have to constantly find ways to refresh excitement around it for newer generations,” Coombs says. “Collaborations and disruptive moments keep the Royal Oak conversation alive outside of traditional watch circles.”The Royal Pop might also be an offering to prospective female clients that Audemars is eager to sweep up. Watch collecting is booming as a hobby, and it’s especially growing among women. Ilaria Resta, AP’s CEO, said in a 2025 interview that the brand is currently underdeveloped with women, who represent barely 20% of its customer base. The many ways this watch can be worn—I’ve already seen it Photoshopped endlessly onto Birkins—and the brighter colors might be a strategic move to bring women into the AP universe.The most profound benefit might be to watchmaking as a whole. O’Dell says that for modern clients, one of the largest hurdles to clear is getting them adjusted to watches they have to wind themselves when they’re used to the automatic ones that get power just from being worn. “This benefits watch collecting as a whole, because it does sort of acclimate the masses to manual winding,” the dealer says. In his write-up on the collaboration, Hodinkee’s Mark Kauzlarich writes that with the two different formats of the Royal Pop on offer, “a few million more people are suddenly going to learn what ‘Lépine’ and ‘Savonette’ mean.”My TakeI have to side with the masses on this one. As someone who loves watches but doesn’t have Audemars Piguet money, I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to afford a Royal Oak in my lifetime. The Royal Pop gives me and many others in my position the ability to participate in that fantasy. And maybe that goes against the whole principle of luxury watches, but if you are buying a watch strictly to lord your status and privilege over other people, then perhaps you should consider that maybe you’re not in this for the right reasons?The Royal Pops are largely delightful and have created a massive cultural moment for watches. Much like the MoonSwatch did four years ago, I can see a new crop of young collectors getting excited about the hobby through this release. And on a personal level, I really want the white one.See all of our newsletters, including Box + Papers, here