Audemars Piguet x Swatch launch Cancelled in Mumbai and UAE Amid Crowd Chaos

16 May 2026, 14:12 by Vinay Kakkad · KalingaTV

The global watch community went wild when Audemars Piguet (AP), the ultra-luxury Swiss watchmaker, announced it was teaming up with Swatch for a special limited-edition “Royal Pop” collection. Normally, getting your hands on an AP—especially an iconic Royal Oak—costs a fortune. We’re talking retail prices starting at ₹30 lakhs, and for rare or complicated models, that number shoots into the crores. But this Swatch collaboration changed all that. Suddenly, you could get a watch with the AP name for about ₹42,000 to ₹45,000 and resellers like Culture circle selling at ₹200,000. It was unheard of. People everywhere got hyped—collectors, enthusiasts, and resellers all scrambling to grab one and flip it for a quick profit.

But the excitement didn’t last. Things got out of hand fast at the Swatch flagship store on the first floor of Palladium Mall in Lower Parel, Mumbai. Hundreds flooded the upscale mall, forming huge lines. What started as an orderly wait turned into chaos. Reels from the scene made the rounds on Instagram, showing people shoving, yelling, and getting stressed over the lack of crowd control. With safety at risk and no way to get things under control, the store just cancelled the launch on the spot. They locked up and refused to open.

People were crushed. Many had waited in line for hours, only to get turned away—all because the event got cancelled at the last minute. And it wasn’t just Mumbai. This scene played out all over the world. In the UAE, huge crowds gathered as early as 6:45 AM outside Swatch stores in the Dubai Mall and the Mall of the Emirates. The crowds were so massive that Swatch ended up putting out a statement on Instagram: they cancelled the Dubai launches too, saying it was all about public safety. Bottom line, the launch was shut down everywhere, brought to a halt by the sheer level of chaos.