I was walking by the San Francisco Swatch store and dropped in to take a look at the Blancpain collaboration. The Swatch employee said they still only had limited colors of the MoonSwatch available but every color of the Blancpain was in stock. I’m not interested in either but it confirmed my suspicions that the Blancpain isn’t nearly as popular as the MoonSwatch, especially at the higher price point.
Exactly. The Moonswatch didn’t just have the timing and the novelty factor going for it—both of which were huge—but also the fact that pretty much everyone who has even a passing familiarity with watches knows what a Speedmaster is. Probably second only to various Rolex models on the “oh yeah, I’ve heard of that before” familiarity scale. You have to be relatively deep into watches already to know or care what the Fifty Fathoms is — and most of those people probably aren’t the types who will buy a $400 plastic Swatch.