What to make of Swatch’s new and incredibly enigmatic advertisement? Product launch? Watch collaboration? Is Swatch rebranding as a luxury water company?
The Swiss watch company certainly went to great lengths to put the thought out there while simultaneously taking great pains to keep its intent incredibly obscure.
The only way you’d see Swatch’s teaser, had you not seen Highsnobiety’s photo of The Frankfurter Allgemeine‘s inside pages above, is by skimming through some of the world’s largest newspapers where Swatch has taken out sparse two-page spreads in September 1 issues. We’re talking publications as big as Japan’s Nikkei and America’s New York Times: Swatch is making a serious push
All for images of water and a very minimal Swatch logo that only offers the letter “S,” date (September 9, 2023), and a curiously blank space that suggests another company or person’s initial ought to be there.
Note the presence of an “x,” as in “Swatch x ______.” Curious.
Considering that Swatch sprung its OMEGA collaboration, the MoonSwatch, upon the world with hardly any warning or expectations of the immense demand that these limited edition watches would generate, seems likely that Swatch is taking precautionary measures before rolling out another big collaboration.
You don’t go to effort this great for the launch of any old timepiece. Either Swatch is debuting a major new watch or an equally huge collaboration and we’re leaning towards the latter given the aforementioned details.
We don’t have much else to go on besides the suspiciously empty space and the water, though. Perhaps that’s enough: we’re likely talking about a watch that can get wet. A diving watch?
If so, we may be looking at the next evolution of the OMEGA x Swatch MoonSwatch? Perhaps the next MoonSwatches won’t be MoonSwatches at all, but WaterSwatches.
Then again, the MoonSwatch’s shape comes from OMEGA’s inimitable Speedmaster. Could the OMEGA x Swatch Seamaster be next?
Or is it possible that Swatch is partnering…
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