{"id":447809,"date":"2026-05-18T14:44:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T14:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/447809\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T14:44:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T14:44:09","slug":"pop-watch-mania-swatch-appeals-for-calm-as-clamour-continues-for-its-royal-pop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/447809\/","title":{"rendered":"Pop watch mania: Swatch appeals for calm as clamour continues for its &#8216;Royal Pop&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n                    Published on                 18\/05\/2026 &#8211; 11:59 GMT+2\u2022Updated<br \/>\n                                     14:53\n                                        <\/p>\n<p>Pop watch mania seems to be showing little sign of slowing down despite calls from Swatch for people to stay away from its stores. <\/p>\n<p>          <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-ad__placeholder__logo\" src=\"https:\/\/static.euronews.com\/website\/images\/logos\/logo-euronews-stacked-outlined-72x72-grey-9.svg\" width=\"72\" height=\"72\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><br \/>\n          ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>          <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-ad__placeholder__logo\" src=\"https:\/\/static.euronews.com\/website\/images\/logos\/logo-euronews-stacked-outlined-72x72-grey-9.svg\" width=\"72\" height=\"72\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><br \/>\n          ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>It follows the launch of its new &#8216;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.euronews.com\/culture\/2026\/05\/15\/when-two-become-one-old-and-new-watchmakers-collaborate-to-change-perception-of-time\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Royal Pop<\/a>&#8216;, a pocket watch made in collaboration with Swiss luxury brand Audemars Piguet, whose entry-level products retail for around \u20ac20,000.<\/p>\n<p>Since its official launch on Saturday, tens of thousands of people around the world have been lining up in the hope of buying a model that sells for reasonable affordable \u20ac385.<\/p>\n<p>Already, the full collection of eight models have been listed online for resale on the fashion platform StockX for up to \u20ac21,000. <\/p>\n<p>Since Friday, massive lines of people have been snaking around the mass-market Swatch shops in several cities including Geneva, New York, London, Paris, Lyon and Milan. <\/p>\n<p>In some cases, watch fans starting camping outside Swatch stores up to a week before Saturday&#8217;s release.<\/p>\n<p>But, as is often the case when &#8220;limited edition&#8221; novelty items are made available, demand far outweighed supply and chaos ensued in a number of locations. <\/p>\n<p>In Paris, police fired tear gas in a bid to restore calm at one store. There were scenes of violence in Milan where a fight erupted at opening time, according to local media. <\/p>\n<p>Stores were also overwhelmed with potential customers in the Netherlands and across a number of cities in Britain forcing Swatch to shut up their shops. <\/p>\n<p>The Swiss watchmaker has since issued an appeal for calm and urged its customers &#8220;not to rush to our stores in large numbers to acquire this product,&#8221; adding that it was not a limited edition collection.<\/p>\n<p>Video editor \u2022 Yolaine De Kerchove Dexaerde<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published on 18\/05\/2026 &#8211; 11:59 GMT+2\u2022Updated 14:53 Pop watch mania seems to be showing little sign of slowing&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":447810,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[146,85,46,129490,209526,409,2460,162588],"class_list":["post-447809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-luxury-goods","tag-luxury-shopping","tag-music","tag-social-media","tag-watchmaking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=447809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}