Best Straps and Bracelets for the Royal Pop
The Royal Pop arrived as a pocket watch. No lugs, no bracelet, no wrist option of any kind. A clip frame and a calfskin lanyard, and a suggestion that you might wear it round your neck.
At 40mm across and 8.4mm thick it is also better proportioned for a wrist than most wristwatches. That gap is why a conversion market exists, and why you are reading this.
This is a guide to the four routes we make, what each material does differently, and how to choose between them. Prices, fit, and the trade-offs that are not obvious from photographs.
First, check your crown
Before anything else. Look at your watch and find the winding crown.
Crown at twelve, at the top of the dial. You have a Lépine. Six of the eight are: Ocho Negro, Huit Blanc, Green Eight, Blaue Acht, Otto Rosso and Orenji Hachi.
Crown at three, on the right-hand side. You have a Savonnette. Two of the eight are: Lan Ba and OTG Roz. These also carry a small seconds display.
Every wrist case has to hold the dial upright relative to your arm, so the two formats need differently machined seats. A Lépine head in a Savonnette case puts the crown at nine o'clock. A Savonnette head in a Lépine case points the crown up your forearm. Neither is a fit, and no adapter bridges them.
Four seconds of looking saves a return.
Why ordinary straps do not work
Two reasons, and both are absolute.
The Royal Pop has no lugs. The case is a smooth octagon with no attachment points anywhere on its outer faces. There is nothing to pin a strap to and nothing for a spring bar to sit in.
What it does have is a clip coupler on the caseback side. The 40mm head pops out of its 53.2mm frame by design, which is the modular idea inherited from the Swatch POP watches of the 1980s. That coupler is the only mechanical interface on the watch, so every wrist solution has to be a case rather than a strap.
This also answers the question we get most often. A MoonSwatch strap will not fit a Royal Pop. The MoonSwatch has conventional 20mm lugs. The Royal Pop has a clip. They have nothing in common beyond the material, and anything sold as an adapter between them is doing something you do not want done to your watch.
The four routes
1. Aluminium. The Monocoque wrist case.
Our flagship. Milled from solid 7075 aerospace-grade aluminium in Britain, held to a 0.2mm tolerance across the octagonal case profile, with our proprietary MonolockTM clip retention system that locks the watch head in place without adhesive, screws or modification of any kind.
7075 is the alloy specification used in aerospace structures and motorsport components, chosen for its strength-to-weight ratio rather than its cost. It is considerably harder to machine than the 6061 most cases are cut from, which is exactly why it holds an edge and a finish the way it does.
Machined, not moulded. Every other conversion on the market is formed in a mould, and a mould gives you whatever the tooling gives you. The Monocoque is cut from billet on a CNC machine to the actual measured geometry of the Royal Pop case. That means the seat bears along the flats of the octagon rather than pinching at the corners, and it means every unit is identical to the last one to within two tenths of a millimetre.
One case, every look. The Monocoque is the only route where the strap is a separate component. It ships on FKM rubber and accepts leather, rubber and integrated straps interchangeably, all tool-free. Rubber through summer, leather with a jacket, back again in October, on the same case. Buy it once.
Built to be reversed. The clip mechanism engages and releases in seconds. Nothing is drilled, glued or permanently altered, so your Royal Pop returns to pocket form exactly as it left the boutique.
Choose it if you want the most engineered route we make, or if you want one case that carries every strap you will ever put on this watch.
2. Stainless steel. The bracelet, £329.
Brushed and polished steel links on a butterfly clasp, in silver and black. The heaviest of the four and the one that reads most like a finished watch rather than a converted one.
What it does that the others do not. Weight. A Royal Pop is a very light object, which is part of what marks it out as Bioceramic when you handle it. Put it on a steel bracelet and it gains the heft people associate with a proper integrated sports watch. That single change does more to alter how the watch feels than any colour choice.
Steel is also the only neutral in the range. It is not a colour, so it never competes with the case. On the loud colourways, and OTG Roz in particular, that is the point.
The trade-off. Price, and the fact that steel next to Bioceramic is an honest contrast rather than a seamless one. It is the most expensive route we make, at two and a half times the bio-ceramic bracelet.
Choose it if you want the full integrated Royal Oak silhouette, or if your colourway is busy enough that any coloured bracelet would fight it.
3. Bio-ceramic. The bracelet, £129.
Bio-ceramic throughout, case and bracelet both, on a stainless steel butterfly clasp. Multiple colours per colourway, tonal or contrasting.
What it does that the others do not. It matches. This is the same material family as the Royal Pop's own case, so the bracelet carries the watch's finish, its warmth and its weight. Held at arm's length the join is difficult to find. Neither the aluminium nor the steel route can do that, because neither is the same material.
It is also where the colour decision lives. Every other route is essentially neutral. Here you choose whether the bracelet runs tonal with the case, extending the watch outward, or against it, setting deliberate contrast. On a collection built out of colour that is not a small choice.
The trade-off. Light. If you want a watch you feel on your wrist, this is not it. Bioceramic is roughly two thirds ceramic powder and one third bio-sourced polymer, and it weighs very little.
Choose it if you want the conversion to disappear, or if you want to make a colour decision rather than a material one.
4. Bio-ceramic case with silicone strap.
A bio-ceramic wrist case on a comfort silicone strap. The everyday option and the softest of the four on the wrist.
What it does that the others do not. Silicone does not care. Not about sweat, chlorine, sunscreen, salt or rain. It wipes clean, it does not stiffen, and it does not crack at the fold the way the supplied calfskin lanyard will after a wet summer.
It is also the most comfortable of the four in heat, and the one you can put on without thinking about whether the day suits it.
The trade-off. It is the least formal route. Silicone reads as sport, and no amount of colour matching changes that.
Choose it if the watch is going to be worn rather than considered, or if it is going anywhere near water.
Which one, in one line each
- You want to change straps. Monocoque. It is the only route where the strap is separate.
- You want the watch to feel substantial. Steel bracelet. Nothing else adds weight.
- You want the conversion to be invisible. Bio-ceramic bracelet. Same material as the watch.
- You want to wear it every day without thinking. Bio-ceramic case and silicone.
- Your colourway is loud. Steel, or a neutral bio-ceramic. Do not add a third colour.
- Your colourway is Ocho Negro. Anything. Black and white takes everything.
Sizing
The bracelets fit wrists from 14cm to 23cm, which covers almost everyone without ordering anything separately. Links are removed to size them and the tool is in the box.
Measure with a tape measure before you start, size down gradually, and keep the links you take out. Sizing down is easy. Finding a link you threw away eight months later is not.
What to check before buying any conversion, ours or anyone else's
The market filled up within days of the launch and quality varies enormously. Five things separate a case worth owning from one that will mark your watch.
- It uses the native clip. The head should click in and be held mechanically. A soft rubber receiver that grips by squeezing works on a bench and lets the case move under a day of wear.
- Nothing adheres, drills or screws into the watch. If a product needs adhesive or permanent alteration, do not buy it. Your resale depends on the watch being unmodified.
- It is dimensioned, not approximated. Ask what the tolerance is. If nobody can tell you, that is the answer. A lot of products that appeared in launch week were designed from photographs rather than measurements.
- The lug geometry does not break the line. The Royal Oak silhouette is one continuous line from bezel outward. A visible gap or a wrong-angled strap destroys the thing you bought the watch for.
- The strap changes without tools. If it is moulded permanently into the case, you have bought one look.
Two things owners get wrong
Carrying it loose while waiting for a case. Sapphire front and back, in a pocket, with keys. Both faces will mark within a fortnight. Use the frame and lanyard until your case arrives.
Forgetting to wind it. The Royal Pop runs a hand-wound movement. On a lanyard people remember, because putting it on is a deliberate act. Once it is on a wrist and behaving like a normal watch, people expect it to wind itself. It will not.
The short version
Check your crown first. Then pick on material rather than colour, because the material decides how the watch feels and the colour only decides how it looks.
Aluminium if you want options. Steel if you want weight. Bio-ceramic if you want the join to disappear. Silicone if you want to stop thinking about it.
See everything we make for the Royal Pop
MGB Watches is an independent aftermarket brand. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to Audemars Piguet or The Swatch Group. Royal Oak, Royal Pop and Audemars Piguet are trademarks of their respective owners. Watches are not included with strap, case or bracelet products.