Issue 204: The Difference Between The Royal Pop and The MoonSwatch
My full thoughts on Audemars Piguet x Swatch, and eight things I saw this week that are better in every way.
Hello and welcome back to The Fourth Wheel, the weekly watch newsletter that will never look better in the AI renderings than in real life.
Q: What has eight sides and went pop this week?
A: The resale value of this MAD Paris x Browns Royal Oak
Doesn’t really work, does it? But still. I’m surprised no-one has brought these up, actually, at least not specifically. If you’ve got one, do write in. I’ll give you £350 for it.
We are of course talking about the the Royal Pop - which I have to say, puts me in mind of King Charles III as much as it summons connotations of pop art or the Pop Swatch. Maybe if they send him one he’ll wear it on his next state visit. He is at least someone who could credibly wear a pocket watch, although I’m not sure he’s in his Labubu era. On which note (pocket watches, not Labubus), someone sent me this recently. I’m sure it’s been doing the rounds, but I’ve been educated. I think I’m a “single Albert with drop” kind of chap. You?
Below the paywall you will find my full thoughts on the matter, or as I should call it, the top talking shop for the Royal Pop drop, no slop, to mop up before you cop. (That’s right, my debut album of horological rap, Bet Geneva Saw That Coming, is out later this year). Then, because we need something else to talk about, I have a palette cleanser of positivity in the form of eight great things I saw just in the last few days. Enjoy!
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Here’s a little taste of what you might have missed recently:
Pop Goes The Royal Oak
What makes my head spin is that watch brands like Audemars Piguet have spent years insisting on their own seriousness. The Royal Oak is to be treated reverentially at all times. And now this. Nevertheless, I want to approach it on its merits, and my thoughts on it continue to evolve. This is my current take, maybe my best take and in all honesty hopefully my last take.
The Royal Oak and the Speedmaster are totally different things, and not just in the ways that are obvious. They don’t play the same role in their partnerships with Swatch.
The MoonSwatch borrowed a lot of Speedmaster DNA, but because it used quartz chronograph movements, it has a significant point of difference. Also the Speedmaster has never been produced in bright block colours. The Royal Pop takes the exact proportions, textures and details of a Royal Oak - the only missing element is the integrated bracelet. You can argue that the bracelet is the sine qua non of a Royal Oak but for me, AP has given away a bit too much.
That also matters because the Speedmaster’s identity is about more than its looks. It’s mechanically interesting and has a place in tool watch history that turned it into an icon. It’s a good piece of design but not objectively better than others of its era; if the Longines-Wittnauer, thought to be a ref. 235T, had been selected by NASA, it would enjoy the same status today1. But the Royal Oak is an icon by design. The choice of stainless steel was bold, but its real strength, its essence, is its looks. AP has proven you can do a lot to that design identity without breaking it, but I still think it’s more dangerous to loan it out. I guess what I’m trying to say is that something that looks like a Royal Oak is a lot closer to a real one than something that looks a bit like a Speedmaster.
I’m not trashing the RO: it’s an enormously important watch, a real moment in design history. I’m also not saying the movement, or the case/bracelet finishing, or all the other points of build quality don’t matter. Just that they don’t matter as much as the look of the thing. kingflum made another good point in saying that the Royal Oak’s appeal lies in its exclusivity - and building on his post about ‘aura’, which is well worth a read including the continued debates in the comments, I feel like the Royal Pop is a signifier without its sign, or however Roland Barthes would have put it; the visual impression of a thing but separated from the substance, cultural currency and so on. (I did not really get on with structuralism at university; I could see that Adorno and Althusser and all the rest of them were onto something but found it terminologically extremely dense. These days I feel it comes up a whole lot more often than Shakespeare’s sonnets or Beowulf, though.)
In no particular order, here are my other thoughts on the collaboration.
Audemars Piguet has done enough ceramic Royal Oaks already that if it had launched these eight designs itself, our reaction would not have been substantially different. I mean, the same people who are angry about the Royal Pop would still be mad, but look at them. Swap bioceramic for real ceramic, Sistem 51 calibres for AP movements: can you really tell me that’s such a crazy idea? I will concede that some of the colour combinations are a bit much, but that’s haggling over the details. I have also seen first-hand how AP is developing its capacity for multi-coloured ceramics; there could be much poppier waters ahead.
