It’s Friday night on Carnaby Street, Soho, and everyone’s partying like it’s 1886. Well, not quite – the uncharacteristically chilly May evening air is perfumed with spliff smoke, dancehall is pumping from a portable PA, and the crowd is coddled in Supreme beanies and Nike balaclavas. But when, over the last century and change, have people lost their shit over pocket watches as much as they have this week?

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Freddie Payne

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Freddie Payne

The Royal Pop, Audemars Piguet x Swatch’s internet-breaking twist on the five-figure (at least) AP Royal Oak, costs a mere £335 at retail. And at least a hundred people are preparing to bed down for the night in tents for a chance to buy one – every customer can only get one – when the Swatch shop opens tomorrow morning. “Not gonna lie, this might as well be Carnival,” a guy filming the scene says to his mates.

James, who’s been here since 6.30pm on Thursday, is sprawled on a camping chair and nursing a small bottle of Captain Morgan. He’s a proper watch guy, with a silver Casio G-Shock on his wrist to prove it, but is looking to resell his Royal Pop. “I’ll probably buy it [again for myself] in a few months when it’s accessible,” he says. “It’s a piece of watch history.” Most of the campers are resellers, which isn’t surprising given the aftermarket prices being thrown around: anywhere between £1,000 to £2,000. “The resale value for this watch is going to be off the chain,” says Amele, a Hatton Garden jeweller, who arrived at 2pm this afternoon. “My market of [customers] want the watch early. So that’s why I’m here.”

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Freddie Payne

Despite the marketing promo about wearing the Royal Pop from your belt or your bag with a lanyard, what most people want to do is fit them to the aftermarket wrist straps already being put into production. Piers, a teenager with diamonds studs below a central-casting Zoomer haircut, says similar. The Audemars Piguet branding is “what people are here for”, he adds – though the MoonSwatch launched in 2022 with its own boatload of hype, AP is a name on a different level to Omega entirely. Daniel, a rare non-reseller, reckons that “what got many people hyped was the AI versions” of the collab that pinged across social media before the watches themselves were unveiled.