Latest Review
This was supposed to be the summer of the Royal Pop. Still the biggest cultural moment for watches of the year, the Royal Pop launch did not exactly go as anyone anticipated, and it created perhaps the wrong kind of crossover moment for all involved. I’ve come to think that the product itself, a colorful pocket watch sharing a silhouette with the Royal Oak, is a lot of fun and a genuinely good and smart idea, but the rollout was so epically poor it will take a long time for the sour taste in all of our mouths to be washed away.
I’m not quite sure what the current availability of Royal Pops actually is in the various Swatch boutiques that are designated to sell them. I’ve seen exactly one in the wild, at Windup Chicago over the weekend, worn on the wrist of an attendee on an aftermarket strap of some kind. It’s safe to say, though, that it has not yet caught on as a Labubu-like sensation the way that Audemars Piguet and Swatch likely hoped that it would.
So, like Swatch themselves, I’m forced to ask “What if…?” What if the Royal Pop had been earmarked for a summer 2027 release instead, and that this year’s big launch was actually the one that came across the transom last week? The new “What If…Jelly?” is one of my favorite types of Swatch releases: those that remind us that what the brand does best are not the intra-group collabs like the MoonSwatch or big hype pieces like the Royal Pop, but the colorful, purely original designs that could only be made by Swatch.
A quick refresher on the What If… line if you need it: these are square cased, quartz powered Swatches based on the idea that at the brand’s founding they had briefly considered launching not with the circular Swatch we’ve all come to know, but a square version. The What If… watches, originally launching a few years ago in the same bioceramic material as the MoonSwatch, are a bit of an alternate reality thought experiment, and are even produced in the same colorways that the brand actually launched with. I own one, and it’s actually one of my very favorite Swatch watches for the way it leans into their own history and simultaneously works as an object of pure imagination.
The new watches seen here combine what the What If… platform with Swatch’s longstanding Jelly line, which dates back to the Jelly Fish references introduced in the 1980s, and make use of clear plastic “gel” cases and bracelets combined with bright colors. I’ve always found the Jelly watches to be really charming in their overtly cartoonish appearance, and they feel like the ideal lightweight, casual summer watch. They certainly make a very different impression in the What If… format with those square cases, which aren’t inherently “sporty” exactly, but take on a bit of that character here.
The specs essentially mirror the existing What If… pieces, with a case design measuring about 41mm and in Swatch’s translucent “jelly” material, which they refer to as “biosourced” in their press materials. There are five variants available at launch: See Thru Black, See Thru Blue, See Thru Mint, See Thru Orange, and See Thru Magenta. Each watch has an integrated translucent strap with an insert matching the dial color, and all have contrasting, colorful handsets.
The retail price on the What If…Jelly? watches is set at $105, so you could basically get one of each for the price of a Royal Pop, and enjoy the rest of the summer wearing a truly original Swatch design that matches or power clashes with every summer fit imaginable. You could also probably figure out a way to strap them to a bag, if that’s your thing. Swatch
