The maison Piaget is celebrating its 150th anniversary with a collection of high-jewelry watches that highlights the extravagance and elegance of its unique style. This is a tribute to its mastery in the use of gold and color, precious stones, design, and exemplary savoir-faire.
Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept Tourbillon 150th Anniversary
To mark this special anniversary, Piaget has achieved an extraordinary feat, unprecedented in the history of watchmaking. One hundred and fifty years after the founding of the maison, 67 years after inventing its first ultra-thin movement—the 9P—and six years after creating the world’s thinnest watch, the Altiplano Ultimate Concept (2018), Piaget has once again pushed the boundaries of watchmaking ingenuity.
The watch measures 2 mm thick, the same thickness as its predecessor, and houses the pulsating heart of a tourbillon. The Altiplano Ultimate Concept Tourbillon is a paradox in itself; however, its dimensions, which exceed the limits of watchmaking feasibility, are a visual statement and mark 150 years of human and horological history. With a diameter of 41.5 mm, water resistance guaranteed up to 20 meters deep, and a case made from cobalt alloy with a blue PVD treatment, the Altiplano Ultimate Concept Tourbillon has all the features of a daily wear watch, but its 2 mm thickness and its tourbillon elevate it to a different level: the extraordinary.
Driven in a circular motion by a bridge that envelops it, the tourbillon of the Altiplano Ultimate Concept Tourbillon subverts current avant-garde technical principles. The engraving on its back, paired with a sapphire crystal placed under the tourbillon, summarizes the process that has driven Piaget since its beginnings: “Always make it better than necessary.”
Masters of the extraordinary
At just 2 mm thick and 41.5 mm in diameter, the Altiplano Ultimate Concept Tourbillon is still capable of withstanding the additional 25% power required by the tourbillon. These figures are not just a series of numbers; they represent victories. Behind this technical achievement lies a saga: a race against time conducted in secret within the Piaget manufactory in La Côte-aux-Fées. Three long years of work, doubt, and self-questioning marked the lives of all who participated.
The tourbillon complication has joined the ranks of great classics in the horological royalty. Here, it takes on a new dimension, both technical and poetic, staying true to the maison’s ancestral approach: technical achievements are meant to serve only the aesthetics of a watch. Extreme precision was the guiding principle of this project. Piaget had to redesign 90% of the components of the original Altiplano Ultimate Concept—and even develop new machines—to create a watch as thin as its predecessor with an additional tourbillon. Inside the Altiplano Ultimate Concept Tourbillon, everything is new: its parts have been reinvented and redesigned based on years of experience. “The connection to the Altiplano Ultimate Concept is clear but misleading. Despite appearances, we did more than just add a tourbillon. We reinvented everything,” said Benjamin Comar, Piaget’s CEO.
Piaget, the art of ‘extralegance’
At Watches and Wonders 2024, and on the occasion of its 150th anniversary, Piaget revisits the year 2023 by reviving some icons of high jewelry: the innovative wristwatches and the Swinging Sautoir, introduced for the first time in 1969, as well as the precious Aura watch, launched in 1989. These creations, considered the most sumptuous from Piaget’s archives, have been reimagined according to the precise combination of artistic audacity and material mastery.
Swinging Sautoir: To understand the evolution of Piaget’s most precious high-jewelry watches, one must go back to 1957 and the first heartbeat of what is within each one—the ultra-thin manual-winding 9P movement born in La Côte-aux-Fées. The launch of the Sautoir watches in 1969 was not just a reintroduction of an old style; it was an ultracontemporary version of the same, combining its horological know-how, the ultra-thin 9P movement, ornamental dials, and all the stylistic details of the 60s and 70s jet-set—scale audacity, abundance of colors, and extravagance of precious metals. Worn layered, as necklaces or belts, swaying from side to side as their wearers walked, they became known as Swinging Sautoir.
Two of them are transformable to be worn on the wrist. For the first, artisans created twisted gold chains by hand, transforming falling gold threads, harmoniously anchored with the watch. Each Swinging Sautoir case is presented in a new trapezoidal, rounded piece, a nod to the shape of the 1969 collection’s cases. The iconic 70s colors, blue and green, are seen in a necklace of malachite and turquoise beads, radiating extravagantly from the hand-woven gold chain set with diamonds, interspersed with yellow sapphires and brilliant-cut diamonds. The turquoise dial watch is suspended by a pair of gemstones—a rare and important 29.24 ct. yellow sapphire from Sri Lanka and a 6.11 ct. aquamarine—elevating the Sautoir to a high-jewelry necklace that can be worn alone; its watch component can be effortlessly removed to be worn on a green satin strap. The second transformable Sautoir features a double chain—one set with diamonds—anchored by an 11.68 ct. kaleidoscopic white opal cabochon that suspends the watch case. The exuberant diamond, gold, and chalcedony tassel balances from a rare emerald-cut yellow sapphire, imparting the piece with the extravagance that defines the maison.
Wristwatch: The year 1969 also saw the introduction of the wristwatch, a bold style, in exuberance, scale, and materials used: graphic gold, heavy-textured gold bracelets, and vibrant-colored dials. So much so that the dramatic watches from the 21st-century collection were acclaimed in the press as “watches of the international elite.” After the Hidden Treasures 2023 bracelet won the Ladies Watch prize at the GPHG, the maison presents a new take on this icon this season. The black opal dial, diluted with iridescent greens and blues, reveals itself on the wrist, where the hand-crafted gold chain seems to grow organically over the dial, like coral in its asymmetry.
Aura: The first high-jewelry Aura watch was revealed in 1989 and caused a frenzy of excitement. The audacity of the perfect integration between the bracelet and the case, paved with baguette-cut diamonds, will always be a testament to Piaget’s prowess in gem setting. Beautiful inside and out, this watch featured an ultra-thin movement, the Piaget Manufacture Ultra-thin manual-winding 40P, when most watchmakers used quartz movements for their precious watches. On its 35th anniversary, the maison celebrates this icon with the release of two unique pieces set with ruby hues, pink sapphires, and diamonds. Cutting and setting techniques allowed for the creation of a face of fine rubies that radiate from the center of the dial, highlighting the deep, saturated color juxtaposed with baguette-cut diamonds. The color gradient effect is achieved in the second variation, with the deep red of rubies fading imperceptibly into the softer pink sapphires and diamonds. Available in two sizes, these new additions to the Aura collection represent the pinnacle of high jewelry and watchmaking.
