Review: MoonSwatch Moonshine Gold
March 7th, 2023. If you had no idea what was going on, you’d be baffled by the queues forming in London, Tokyo, Milan and Zurich. If you stopped to ask why, you’d be even more baffled by the answer: “We’re buying a cheap, plastic watch.” This was the second wave of Omega and Swatch’s contentious collaboration, and I’m still not entirely sure it worked. Let’s get into it.
Background
Everything about the idea of the MoonSwatch is perfect. The deluxurising—a word I just made up—of popular watches that were once built as tools. The return to affordability and therefore accessibility to a wider audience. The fun of mix-and-match colour collectability. This was the watch that had the potential to make the industry absolutely blow up. And it kinda did.
The timing was just perfect. The biggest watch show of the year, Watches & Wonders, was just a few weeks out. We were going to see all the latest releases from the likes of Rolex, Patek Philippe and Tudor. And yet all anyone could talk about was a cheap, plastic watch that came on a strap so bad it should be sanctioned.
2022 was all about the MoonSwatch, and not necessarily for the same reasons. People I know who wouldn’t know a Rolex from a rolodex were asking me about the MoonSwatch. You could literally write the word “MoonSwatch” online and become internet famous. The launch was covered by publications that usually wrote about trainers. That’s sneakers to everyone out there who’s wrong.
There was a fatal flaw in the plan. Whether by design or by miscalculation, demand for the MoonSwatch outnumbered supply by a factor of a zillion. Scalpers lurked around Swatch stores day after day, intimidating customers and offloading their hauls for many times over list.
The utopian dream of the MoonSwatch had been foiled. I think it’s fair to say that, so long as Swatch didn’t engineer the scarcity in a cynical marketing ploy, the sour taste left behind by the MoonSwatch was simply a case of “this is why we can’t have nice things.” It’s tempting to point fingers at Swatch for not making the purchasing experience a more inclusive one, but I really think we only have ourselves to blame. Oh well.
In any case, as MoonSwatches became more readily available and the chatter died down, we found ourselves in the position I probably imagine Swatch had envisaged right from the start: people who at least had a vague interest in watches got to treat themselves to a slightly underwhelming watch with one of the worst straps since people realised you could skin a stingray.
A year later and pretty much everyone who wanted one, has one, and so it makes sense that Swatch would want to stoke the coals a bit and getting the fire raging once more. Enter the MoonSwatch Moonshine Gold, a limited-run watch that I assume Swatch hoped would reignite the MoonSwatch conversation.
Review
In that respect at least, it appears to have worked. And I actually think the MoonSwatch Moonshine Gold is quite a nice idea. For those that don’t know, it’s a standard moon-flavoured MoonSwatch, but now with a gold-plated chronograph seconds hand, supposedly produced for one day during a full moon. Because, you know, reasons.
That watch was then sold in the financial districts of London, Tokyo, Milan and Zurich for one day of the next full moon. There weren’t limited numbers per se, just as many as each location could manage. The watch came with a special gold box and a certificate and of course now features for sale used at many multiples of the RRP.
This time, however, the conversation about this watch feels more exhausted. A year on and we’re all a bit tired of the whole thing, a bit cynical. It’s a shame, because I really do think what Swatch have done with this watch is really quite nice.
Turns out that this watch is going to go on sale in different locations around the world whenever there’s a full moon. Whether they’ll keep using this same edition and for how long, I don’t know, but what I do know is that the next full moon saw it for sale in 14 more cities including New York. The watch was basically identical, save for a tiny number “3” on the gold-plated hand, perhaps a reference to the production run.
Why I like it is because I think the whole watch collecting game is getting a bit us-and-them. In fact I think the whole world is. Blame it on politics, wealth, social media—whatever—bigger and bigger rifts are forming between people and it feels like it’s on a trajectory to nowhere good. And so, for a few brief moments, the MoonSwatch Moonshine Gold, however crappy and plasticky and pointless, brought people together.
Rather than queues of scalpers and hooligans, the Moonshine Gold brought people from all around the world together for a day of good old-fashioned, in-person interaction. People came with their friends and partners, wearing their MoonSwatches, to join together in a celebration not just of a cheap alternative to a classic watch, but of each other. And I like that.
What is there to say about the watch itself? Not much. If you’re familiar with the MoonSwatch, it’s all but identical. The gold second hand barely even notices. The strap is still worse than the ending to the sequel trilogy. But if you got one by spending a day making new friends, then it’s worth more than anything you can get for it online. It’s worth a unique experience and a memory that watches many, many times more expensive wish they could lay claim to.
The MoonSwatch Moonshine Gold and indeed the whole MoonSwatch campaign has glimmers of brilliance to it. The execution was at best questionable and the sentiment still more bitter than brilliant, but there’s elements to what’s been achieved that have the potential to be distilled into something greater.
I don’t know about you, but I’m very much in favour of dismantling barriers between people and bringing together a more unified empathy that helps people better understand the plight of their fellow human. So instead of hating each other and arguing online, we can open a dialogue and find a compromise that brings people closer together. If it takes a stupid plastic watch to do that, then I’m all for it.
What do you think of the MoonSwatch and its revival with the Moonshine Gold? A fresh approach or a stale lemon?
