Swatch and Omega’s partnership to create the MoonSwatch in 2022 was heralded as one of the greatest marketing stunts of the decade among watch industry pundits.
At a stroke, the project breathed new life into physical Swatch stores around the world, which were mobbed by punters and flippers desperate to acquire the $250 bioceramic Omega Speedmaster-clone timepieces.
Swatch sales soared, but Omega also directly benefited with demand rising for its Speedmaster chronographs, according to Swatch Group CEO Nick Hayek.
Now it appears Swatch Group is hoping to pull off the same trick with a Swatch x Blancpain launch.
A post on Swatch’s Instagram overnight shows the five great oceans of the world with Swatch x Blancpain and the date of September 9.
The Swatch x Omega MoonSwatch came in a dozen different colorways, all linked to a real or imagined mission into space.
2023 is the 70th anniversary of Blancpain’s Fifty Fathoms divers’ watch, which seems certain to provide the design of any bioceramic homage from Swatch.
In common with Omega’s Speedmaster, there have been myriad version of the Fifty Fathoms over the decades, providing a deep pool of design options that Swatch might draw on; one for each of the five oceans featured in its Instagram post, perhaps.
Blancpain is giving little away about the collaboration watches but, when pressed, did point WatchPro in the direction of a quote from Jean-Claude Biver, who rescued the business after acquiring it in 1982: “There has never been a quartz Blancpain watch and there never will be”, he has said.
So, a mechanical Swatch x Blancpain Fifty Fathoms? Not necessarily. Since Swatch is making and retailing the collaboration watches, they could still be quartz without falling foul of Mr Biver’s assertion, but the tip-off from Blancpain certainly suggests an automatic is on the way.