AI Promised the Audemars Piguet x Swatch Wristwatch. China Will Deliver It

AI 承诺了爱彼 x 斯沃琪联名腕表，而中国将实现它

For a week now, Instagram’s watch fans have been losing their minds over what looked like leaked product images. Vivid plastic Audemars Piguet Royal Oak wristwatches in bright colors: navy and orange, pink, yellow, and green. Captions guessed about prices and launch queues. Comment sections argued over colors. None of it was real. Every image was AI-generated.

过去一周，Instagram 上的腕表爱好者们为一系列看似泄露的产品图片而疯狂。图片中是色彩鲜艳的塑料材质爱彼（Audemars Piguet）皇家橡树腕表，配色包括海军蓝配橙色、粉色、黄色和绿色。评论区里人们猜测着价格和排队情况，争论着配色。然而，这一切都不是真的，每一张图片都是由 AI 生成的。

When Swatch and Audemars Piguet confirmed their Royal Pop collaboration on May 8, the teaser campaign left just enough ambiguity to allow the watch web to fill the void with its own vision. The result has been a weeklong hype cycle built not around the actual product but an AI-generated simulacrum of it.

当斯沃琪（Swatch）和爱彼于 5 月 8 日确认双方的“Royal Pop”合作时，预热活动留下了足够的模糊空间，让钟表界得以用自己的想象填补空白。结果就是，过去一周的炒作热潮并非围绕真实产品，而是围绕着一个由 AI 生成的模拟品。

So, when the real Royal Pop collection dropped on Tuesday, ahead of schedule (perhaps forced by the volume of fake images circulating), yes, it turned out to be genuinely different and interesting. But for a significant section of the audience that had already fallen for the fakes, it was genuinely disappointing.

因此，当真正的 Royal Pop 系列于周二提前发布时（或许是受大量虚假图片流传的压力所迫），它确实显得与众不同且有趣。但对于那些已经深信假图的受众群体来说，这无疑令人大失所望。

This is a new problem. When Swatch launched the MoonSwatch with Omega in 2022, publicly available AI image generators capable of flooding the zone with photorealistic versions of the watch from single-line prompts didn’t exist. Even subsequent editions as recent as the Snoopy “Cold Moon” didn’t elicit the social pile-on the Royal Pop has endured in the past seven days.

这是一个新问题。2022 年斯沃琪与欧米茄（Omega）推出 MoonSwatch 时，市面上还没有能够通过简单提示词就生成大量逼真腕表图片的 AI 工具。即便是近期推出的史努比“Cold Moon”版本，也没有像过去七天里 Royal Pop 所经历的那样引发社交媒体上的集体狂欢。

“The prelaunch hype has become a key part of it all, an enormously valuable part,” says Chris Hall, founder of the popular The Fourth Wheel Substack (and a WIRED contributor). “Today’s audience is even more clued-in than it was four years ago. It makes it very hard for the real watch to surpass expectations or deliver a genuine shock of the new, especially when the whole world has been generating its own images of what it might look like.”

“发布前的炒作已成为整个过程的关键部分，且极具价值，”知名 Substack 专栏 The Fourth Wheel 的创始人（同时也是《连线》杂志撰稿人）Chris Hall 表示，“今天的受众比四年前更懂行。这使得真实的产品很难超越预期或带来真正的新鲜感，尤其是当全世界都在生成他们心目中产品的样子时。”

It didn’t matter that Swatch had carefully tried to manage expectations by teasing the lanyards first, signaling clearly that this was a pocket watch—not worn on the wrist. Once the first few searingly vibrant plastic Royal Oak AI images hit Instagram, complete with plastic bracelets mirroring the iconic AP design, the algorithm kicked in. Soon, thousands were reposting wristwatch Royal Pops, while others set about designing their own takes, all as convincing as the last entirely unreal watch, willfully ignoring the obvious lanyard clue.

斯沃琪曾试图通过先预热挂绳来引导预期，明确暗示这是一款怀表而非腕表，但这无济于事。一旦最初几张色彩鲜艳、带有爱彼标志性设计塑料表带的 AI 生成皇家橡树图片出现在 Instagram 上，算法便开始发力。很快，成千上万的人开始转发这些“腕表版”Royal Pop，其他人则着手设计自己的版本，每一款都和那些完全虚构的图片一样令人信服，人们刻意忽略了明显的挂绳线索。

The dream was clear: Watch fans wanted the moon on a stick, fantasizing about owning a hyper-accurate low-budget version of an iconic high-end wristwatch that sells for $20,000, and no official Swatch teases leading to alternative outcomes were welcome.

梦想很明确：表迷们想要的是“天上的月亮”，他们幻想能拥有一款售价仅需几百美元、却能高度还原价值 2 万美元高端腕表的低价版本，而任何指向其他结果的官方预热都不受欢迎。

The Real Deal

真实的产品

Disappointment aside, the Royal Pop Collection is a legitimately interesting proposal. A set of eight pocket watches made from Swatch’s bioceramic composite in two styles, Lépine (crown at 12) and Savonnette (crown at 3, with a small seconds subdial at 6), and priced at $400 and $420, respectively.

抛开失望情绪不谈，Royal Pop 系列确实是一个有趣的提案。该系列包含八款怀表，采用斯沃琪的生物陶瓷复合材料制成，分为两种款式：Lépine（表冠位于 12 点钟位置）和 Savonnette（表冠位于 3 点钟位置，6 点钟位置设有小秒针盘），售价分别为 400 美元和 420 美元。

Laden with iconic Royal Oak design cues, most notably the octagonal case, eight-screw bezel, and Petite Tapisserie-patterned dial, the strapless design heavily references 1979’s Royal Oak Pocket Watch reference 5691. Inside is an entirely new hand-wound version of Swatch’s Sistem51 caliber, a movement that is completely machine assembled. Swatch has 15 active patents on this new iteration and has also squeezed in an impressive 90-hour power reserve. There’s even an antimagnetic Nivachron balance spring that was, incidentally, codeveloped with Audemars Piguet.

该系列承载了皇家橡树的标志性设计元素，最显著的是八角形表壳、八颗螺丝的表圈以及“Petite Tapisserie”格纹表盘。这种无表带设计大量参考了 1979 年的皇家橡树怀表（型号 5691）。内部搭载了斯沃琪 Sistem51 机芯的全新手动上链版本，该机芯完全由机器组装。斯沃琪为这一新版本申请了 15 项专利，并实现了令人印象深刻的 90 小时动力储存。此外，它还配备了防磁 Nivachron 游丝，顺便提一下，这是与爱彼共同开发的。

Swatch’s 1986 POP line, whose watch heads could be physically ejected from their frames and clipped elsewhere, has been plundered here to create a design that allows the Royal Pops to ping out of their bioceramic holder clips, too.

斯沃琪 1986 年的 POP 系列（其表头可以从框架中弹出并夹在其他地方）的设计灵感也被借鉴于此，使得 Royal Pop 也可以从生物陶瓷支架夹中弹出。

Why There’s No Wristwatch

为什么没有腕表？

The simple logic of the pocket watch design authorized by Audemars Piguet, which, unlike Omega, is not part of the Swatch Group, is that it doesn’t upset its existing high-net-worth customer base. Royal Oak owners will no doubt be breathing sighs of relief now that it’s confirmed a version of their coveted pieces won’t be coming to market for a mere few hundred bucks.

爱彼（与欧米茄不同，它不属于斯沃琪集团）授权怀表设计的逻辑很简单：不激怒其现有的高净值客户群。皇家橡树的拥有者们现在无疑松了一口气，因为确认了他们梦寐以求的腕表不会以区区几百美元的价格上市。

However, this doesn’t mean that AP would have been financially hit had it delivered what the public so clearly wanted. Omega, which was also concerned for its sales when shown the original MoonSwatch internal prototypes, enjoyed a sizable 50 percent bump in sales following the release of its budget cousin.

然而，这并不意味着如果爱彼满足了公众的明确需求，其财务状况就会受到打击。欧米茄在看到最初的 MoonSwatch 内部原型时也曾担心销量，但其平价版本发布后，欧米茄的销量反而大幅增长了 50%。

The Royal Pop pocket watch, cleverly, is a sidestep designed to generate as much hype as possible yet be as safe as can be for AP’s brand. The Royal Oak design language is unmistakable, but the wrist is off-limits. With Swatch, Audemars built something real for its aspirational fans; it just didn’t build them what they wanted.

Royal Pop 怀表巧妙地采取了一种折中方案，旨在尽可能制造热度，同时确保爱彼品牌的安全性。皇家橡树的设计语言显而易见，但“腕表”这一领域是禁区。通过与斯沃琪的合作，爱彼为那些向往该品牌的粉丝打造了真实的产品，只是没有提供他们想要的那种形式。

What does Swatch get out of this? Valuable PR as well, but far more importantly, the potential of a much-needed sales hit. In 2025, the group posted a 6.75 percent drop in sales and a staggering 55.6 percent decline in operating profit, primarily attributed to a sharp drop in demand for its watches in China, Hong Kong, and Macau. Swatch Group shareholders are not happy.

斯沃琪从中得到了什么？除了宝贵的公关效应，更重要的是潜在的急需的销售增长。2025 年，该集团销售额下降了 6.75%，营业利润更是惊人地下降了 55.6%，这主要归因于其在中国内地、香港和澳门地区腕表需求的急剧下滑。斯沃琪集团的股东们对此并不满意。

How China Will Come to the Rescue

中国将如何“救场”

Here is where the story gets interesting for reasons neither Swatch nor AP planned. As Swatch resurrected its POP design, allowing the Royal Pop to be removed from its housing, within hours of the Royal Pop announcement, third-party strap brands seized on this prospect, looking to quickly fashion adaptations that convert the timepiece from pocket to wristwatch. As Royal Pops were designed to snap in and out of lanyards and desk stands, they should just as easily clip into bracelets and straps made specifically to receive them.

故事在这里变得有趣起来，原因出乎斯沃琪和爱彼的意料。由于斯沃琪复刻了 POP 设计，允许 Royal Pop 从外壳中取出，在 Royal Pop 发布后的几小时内，第三方表带品牌就抓住了这一商机，寻求快速设计出能将这款怀表转换为腕表的适配器。由于 Royal Pop 被设计为可以轻松卡入挂绳和桌面支架，它们同样可以轻松卡入专门为其设计的表带和表链中。

The market recognized in real time that the pocket watch from Swatch and AP tantalizingly contained all that was structurally needed to deliver the very wristwatch that the AI concepts had promised. All that was required now was something to connect the case to a…

市场实时意识到，斯沃琪和爱彼推出的这款怀表，在结构上已经具备了实现 AI 概念所承诺的那款腕表所需的一切。现在所需要的，仅仅是一个将表壳连接到……的装置。