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Fashion Update: Sky's the limit for Swatch fans: Devotees can vie for ownership of a limited number designed by Vivienne Westwood at the London Planetarium tonight

Wednesday 21 April 1993 23:02 BST
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SWATCH mania, the craze for those cheerful watches from Switzerland with the annoyingly loud tick, goes on. Mob scenes are expected at the London Planetarium tonight, when a limited edition Swatch by Vivienne Westwood OBE will go on sale.

Only 1,000 watches from a worldwide edition of 49,999 based on Westwood's Deep Sky Orb logo will be available in the UK, and 500 of these have been pre-sold to Swatch maniacs who started queuing outside the Swatch store on Oxford Street at 5am last Saturday (see right). They will collect their watches tonight.

The Pop Swatch Orb is Westwood's second for the watch company. Last year, she created an unlimited Swatch, based on the cherubic paintings that adorn her bustiers, called Putti. Swatch says that this first venture with Westwood has been 'magnificently successful'. Westwood's second venture with Swatch is about the kudos of obtaining a watch by the cutting-edge designer that will never be repeated.

Some of those queuing up tonight won't be looking for a watch to wear for ever. There is a fast trade in Swatches, with limited editions gaining high prices at auction. One by the Italian artist Mimmo Paladino was sold for pounds 21,800 in Zurich in 1989.

The Planetarium's box office opens at 7pm. Tickets, which entitle holders to a celestial evening out as well as an orb watch, are pounds 45. But beware. By the time you read this, the queue may already be round the block.

(Photograph omitted)

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