It Sounds Like the Swatch x AP Royal Pop Is Getting a Strap After All

When Swatch officially unveiled its Royal Pop collaboration with Audemars Piguet yesterday, the announcement was met with a mix of excitement and disappointment.

The excitement, which I largely share, is owed to this collab looking really good. The colors are very fun, the product is unique and unexpected and it’s arguably the perfect combination of Swatch and AP design language.

The very vocal displays of disappointment online come from the fact that the Royal Pop is not a wristwatch. Unlike previous Pop Swatches, Swatch is not offering a wristband that allows you to wear its Royal Oak collab on the wrist. Instead, you have the option of wearing it on a leather lanyard or using it as a desk clock with the included stand.

But don’t fret. Despite just being announced yesterday, a top strap maker has already announced that it’s working on developing a strap that will allow the Royal Pop to be worn on the wrist.

Delugs

No wrists allowed

While there is still speculation online that Swatch will eventually launch a strap to turn the Royal Pop into a wristwatch, I see no evidence of that. The comments Swatch is leaving on Instagram, directing people asking about straps to visit Swatch’s online store to purchase accessories, are simply telling people to buy more lanyards. I don’t expect Swatch to offer Royal Pop straps for a number of reasons.

For one, Audemars Piguet is a grail-level brand. It’s considerably upmarket from Omega, and even Blancpain, Swatch’s previous luxury watch collaborators. An AP-branded Swatch wristwatch that looks frighteningly close to an actual ceramic Royal Oak isn’t doing AP any favors and is arguably devaluing the brand.

Swatch

The Royal Pop as it exists, however, does help AP, in my opinion. It’s not a typical watch, so it doesn’t just appeal to typical watch nerds. It’s more akin to a collectible piece of art. I think AP’s goal with this collab is to raise awareness for its own brand — which already has crossed over into the worlds of streetwear and fashion where I think the Royal Pop has its strongest appeal — among young people.

A second goal for AP is to bring attention to mechanical watchmaking, as evidenced by the brand’s pledge to donate 100 percent of its Royal Pop proceeds to support an initiative dedicated to building up the next generation of watchmakers.

Swatch’s motivations are obvious. The brand wants to be in headlines, it wants people lining up outside their stores creating buzz and it wants to sell a ton of Royal Pops. Swatch will accomplish all of this by collaborating with AP.

Swatch

I also think Swatch would make a strap for the Royal Pop in a heartbeat if AP signed off on it, but I don’t see that happening. Audemars Piguet, unlike Omega and Blancpain, is not a part of the Swatch Group. It’s an independent brand, so it presumably exerts more control over its Swatch collab than those other brands.

So while I don’t put any credence into the rumors that Swatch will produce a strap for the Royal Pop, that doesn’t mean we aren’t getting one.

Strapped up

Delugs is a premium strapmaker based in Singapore. In recent years, it has become firmly entrenched in the watch enthusiast community on account of the brand’s popular cut-to-size rubber straps fitted with spring-loaded deployant claps. Its rise has also been aided by the brand’s active social media presence and its constant sourcing of ideas from its customers.

Delugs makes custom-fit straps for popular enthusiast watch models like the Tissot PRX and Christopher Ward Twelve, along with the MoonSwatch and even high-end niche brands like De Bethune and MB&F. The brand has even collaborated with several watch brands, including SpaceOne and Awake, to produce factory straps for certain models.

All this is to say that if any third party can make a strap for the Royal Pop, it’s Delugs. And it sounds like it’s going to happen.

Delugs founder Kenneth Kuan took to Instagram earlier today to formally announce that his company has begun work on figuring out how to produce a strap for the Royal Pop. Kuan notes that it will be a challenge given that Delugs will need to produce a case to hold the watch head that then connects to a strap, but he expresses confidence and excitement that his team can pull it off, stating, “We have the R&D and the product team to create something like this.”

Delugs also shared several mockups of what a potential strap could look like, and it’s hard not to get excited by the renders. They show a smaller holder than what’s included with the Royal Pop, complete with the Royal Oak’s traditional integrated end links merging perfectly with a rubber strap.

Delugs

The mockups also display a clever workaround for the lépine-style Royal Pops, which feature the crown at 12:00. Instead of keeping them oriented at 12:00, the renders have the watch heads rotated so that the crown wears closer to 1:30 on the wrist, transforming it into a (very cool) driver’s watch. The two savonnette versions, with the crown at 3:00, obviously make for a more straightforward wristwatch conversion.

Kuan also says in the video that “Project WristPop” is a top priority for Delugs and that the brand is fully committed to making it happen. He concedes that he has no timeline or pricing information yet, and doesn’t yet know what the product will actually look like. But to show their commitment, Delugs already has a landing page for the future product where you can sign up to be notified of developments.

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