Brawls and Mobs at a Wristwatch Store?

Here are some takeaways from the Great Swatch Fiasco of 2026.

John F. Di Leo | May 21, 2026

The wristwatch business is always good for a research rabbit hole.  

As watchmakers go, Swatch has been one of the most creative.  One can now buy a men’s or women’s Swatch for anywhere from $65 to $250, either from thousands of department stores and specialty shops or from online vendors, or even from the 220 official Swatch branded stores all over the world.

Swatch is in the news today because of an unusual collaboration and a surprising number of disturbances in multiple countries on multiple continents over this last weekend.

Despite being a Swiss company, Swatch is not a high-end watch (though the Swatch holding company does own several other luxury brands, such as Longines and Tissot).  The Swatch brand’s price point makes it competitive with more mainstream casual and dress watch brands like Timex, Fossil, and Citizen.  But they dreamed up a “collaboration” with luxury watchmaker Audemars Piguet, whose watches range from five to six figures each.

To say that these two brands have different clienteles would be the understatement of the year.

So Swatch designed a small keyfob clock out of what they call bioceramics (a modern high-tech plastic) to merge the bright colors of the Swatch brand with the more traditional design of Piguet’s “Royal Oak” line, which can most simply be described as an octagonal take on the square Cartier Santos. 

A Royal Oak wristwatch would set you back forty to fifty grand or even more, whereas a Swatch wristwatch costs a hundred bucks.  This new Swiss-made keyfob clock is priced at $400, so it’s expensive for a Swatch, but it’s still nowhere near what anyone thinks of as a high-end watch price.  

Nobody has........

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