Swatch Shuts Doors Worldwide as Royal Oak Collab Triggers Mall Stampedes

A pocket watch co-designed by Swatch and Audemars Piguet sent shoppers into a documented frenzy at retail locations across multiple countries, forcing temporary store closures on launch day.

Swatch and Audemars Piguet jointly launched a pocket watch collection drawing massive queues to malls and standalone stores worldwide.
Crowd sizes forced Swatch to temporarily close multiple retail locations as a safety measure.
The collaboration pairs Swatch's mass-market retail footprint with Audemars Piguet's Royal Oak design language, historically retailing in the five-figure range.
Scenes of consumer disorder were reported across locations in Europe, Asia, and North America.
Swatch did not immediately confirm how many stores were shuttered or for how long.

Swatch temporarily shuttered stores in multiple countries on May 16, 2026, after a collaboration pocket watch with Audemars Piguet drew crowds large enough to trigger safety closures at malls and standalone retail locations worldwide, according to reporting by The New York Times.

The collection, which pairs Swatch’s accessible price architecture with the Royal Oak design language that Audemars Piguet has retailed at north of $20,000 a reference for decades, had not publicly disclosed a launch price ahead of the release.

Queues formed at locations across Europe, Asia, and North America. Swatch did not confirm a total number of affected stores or issue a revised opening schedule as of the Times report.

The partnership is not the first time Swatch has engineered a retail frenzy through luxury collaboration — its MoonSwatch line with Omega, launched in March 2022 at $260 per unit, produced comparable scenes of crowd disorder and secondary-market markups within hours.

The Audemars Piguet pocket watch is designed to be worn in a pocket.