Several people spent Saturday night queuing at Centro Comercial Colombo, in Lisbon, and at Norte Shopping, in Porto, to buy “Royal Pop”, limited edition watch resulting from a partnership between Swatch and the luxury brand Audemars Piguet. Outside, the situation repeated itself in an even more chaotic way with some stores having to close for safety reasons.
The launch of the pocket watch on Saturday caused crowds in several parts of Europe. Portugal was no exception and there were those who waited several hours for the limited edition that costs approximately 350 euros.
The collection “Royal Pop” is born from a combination between the classic Royal Oak model from Audemars Piguet and Swatch’s POP line, popular in the 1980s. In partnership, fpray created eight versions which can be used in various ways.
The authentic rush for the product can be explained by the lower price. Typically, an Audemars Piguet watch can cost at least 2 thousand euros. In the store, there was a rule of only one watch per person, per day and per store.
The situation was repeated all over the world, but in a more chaotic way. In the United Kingdom and the Countries Low, some stores had to close for security reasons.
Already andn France, in a store near Paris, the police had to intervene with the use of tear gas to control a crowd of around 300 people.
In New York, in the United States, the opening of the Swatch store in Times Square was marked by pushing and shoving among the waiting crowd. “It was chaos,” he told Agence France-Presse (AFP) a buyer which had been in line since Wednesday.
The confusion was so great that, late in the afternoon of the first day of sales, Swatch announced, via social media, that in some locations queues of more than 50 people would be prohibited and that in other places sales would even be cancelled.
“To ensure safety of our customers and our employees at Swatch stores, we ask that you do not rush to the stores in large numbers to buy this product”, says the .
