Swatch ad sparks controversy over racist depiction

Swiss watchmaker Swatch issued an apology this weekend regarding the racist nature of its recent advertisements. The images showed an Asian model pulling the corners of their eyes upwards and backwards.

The images were for the Swatch Essentials collection and were met with a wave of indignant comments on social media. According to Reuters, some of these comments indicated that the images appeared to mimic racist insults towards Asian eyes. The adverts have now been removed.

“We have taken note of the recent concerns regarding the representation of a model in the images of the Swatch Essentials collection,” the brand wrote in an Instagram post. “We take this matter very seriously and have immediately removed all relevant materials globally. We sincerely apologise for any distress or misunderstanding this may have caused.”

The company’s share price fell by 2.7 percent at the start of trading on Monday, before slightly reducing its losses, according to Reuters. Reuters also noted that the company’s shares have fallen by more than half since the beginning of 2023. The company now faces tariffs of 39 percent on its exports to the US.

The group, which owns Swatch as well as Tissot, Longines and Omega, published lower profits for the first half of the year in July. Profits were 17 million Swiss francs for the period from January to June, compared to 147 million francs for the same period a year earlier.

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