For Watches and Wonders 2024, Piaget celebrates the 150th anniversary of the Maison by expanding on 2023’s revival of its most iconic High Jewellery Watches signatures: the ground-breaking and hypnotic cuff watches and Swinging Sautoir first introduced in 1969, and the audaciously precious Aura watch, launched in 1989.
Continuing on igniting the spark between past and present times, these most sumptuous creations from Piaget’s archives are reimagined with an exacting combination of artistic daring and material mastery, bringing them into the real 21st century with elegance and ingenuity. Piaget’s artisans are not simply watchmakers and jewellers, they are watchmakers who became jewellers. But it is artistry that defines the difference between a craftsperson and a Piaget artisan; the unique, individual touch of each of the house’s goldsmiths and gem setters, combining to infuse precious timepieces with Piaget’s most beloved High Jewellery codes; originality, daring, and the most rarefied of precious materials.
PIAGET SWINGING SAUTOIR
To understand the evolution of Piaget’s most precious High Jewellery timepieces, one must go back to 1957, and the first heartbeat of what lies within each – the ultra-thin 9P hand-wound mechanical movement born in La Côte-aux-Fées, Switzerland, where Piaget was founded in 1874.
The now famous movement was revolutionary, but the decision to house it only in precious metals would set the Maison on course to be true masters of Haute Horlogerie and Haute Joaillerie at the same time. Piaget’s launch of the sautoir watches in 1969 for the 21st Collection launch in Basel was not just a reintroduction of an antique style -it was an uber-contemporary take on it, combining their horological know-how, ultra-thin 9P movement, audacious ornemental dials and all the stylistic mores of the 60s and 70s jet-set; a boldness of scale, Wa bounty of colour, and an extravagance of precious metals. Worn languidly, layered up as necklaces or belts, swishing from side to side as their wearers sauntered, they became known as Swinging Sautoir.
In 2024, Piaget unveils three exquisite new Swinging Sautoir, two transformable to be worn on the wrist. For the first one, the artisans created the twisted gold chains by hand, meticulously crafting single strands of gold into fluid links that fall harmoniously to be anchored with the timepiece. Each Swinging Sautoir case comes in a new, softly rounded trapeze case, a nod to the shape of the cases from the original 1969 collection. The Iconic 1970s – era colourway of blue and green is seen in a necklace of malachite and turquoise beads and flamboyantly radiating out from the diamond-paved set hand-twisted gold chain and interspersed with yellow sapphires and brilliant-cut diamonds. The turquoise dialled watch is suspended from a duo of precious gemstones – a rare and important 29.24 – carat yellow sapphire from Sri Lanka, and a 6.11 – carat aquamarine, elevating the Sautoir to a High Jewellery necklace that can be worn on its own, while its watch component can be ingeniously and effortlessly unclasped to be worn on a green satin strap – an example of Piaget’s playful sensibilities. The second transformable sautoir sees a double chain – one diamond – set – anchored by a kaleidoscopic white opal cabochon of 11.68 cts suspending the watch case.
To further elevate the piece, an exuberant tassel of diamonds, gold and chalcedony swings from a rare emerald-cut yellow sapphire, giving the whole piece the flamboyance that defines the Maison.
PIAGET CUFF WATCH
1969 also saw the introduction of the cuff watch, a boldly-scaled style that only continued to grow in exuberance and extravagance in terms of size and materials: deep cuffs of graphic gold openwork, heavily textured gold bracelets and vibrant coloured dials.
So much so that the dramatic watches in the 21st century collection were hailed in the press as the watches ‘of the international elite.’ After the 2023 Hidden Treasures cuff was awarded by the GPHG’s Ladies Watch prize, the Maison is introducing this season another take on this icon. Here, the black opal dial swimming with iridescent greens and blues isn’t so much encased as it is revealed within its hand-made gold chain cuff, each twisted individually by hand, the goldwork seeming to grow organically over the dial, coral-like in its asymmetry.
A masterclass in Piaget’s use of colour and textured gold.
PIAGET AURA
When the first High Jewellery Aura timepiece was revealed in 1989, it sparked a frenzy of enthusiasm for the daring nature of its seamless integration of its bracelet and case entirely paved with baguette-cut diamonds, proving Piaget’s prowess in gem-setting.
Beautiful both in and out, this exceptional timepiece boasted an ultra-thin movement, the Piaget Manufacture Ultra-thin manual winding 40P, when most of the Maisons were using quartz movements for their precious watches. Now, for its 35th anniversary, the Maison celebrates this precious icon with the launch of two unique pieces set with beautiful hues of rubies, pink sapphires and diamonds. Masterful cutting and setting techniques allowed Piaget to create a face of thin rubies that radiate from the centre of the dial, the colour deep and saturated and beautifully juxtaposed with baguette-cut diamonds. A beautiful gradiant of colours effect is expertly achieved in the second variation, with the deep red of the rubies imperceptibly fading through to softest pink sapphires and diamonds via Piaget’s incredible setting savoir-faire and colour matching.
In two sizes, these audacious new additions to the Aura collection are at the very pinnacle of High Jewellery and Watchmaking.
For this second milestone, after the unveiling of the new Polo 79 as part of the Pre Watches and Wonders, the Maison is highlighting this season the very essence of what Piaget was, is and will be. A true passion which was perfectly summed up back in the days by Yves Piaget:
« I wanted to show that our watches and jewellery are real works of Art, and that the people who make them are real artists. »
ABOUT PIAGET
Piaget epitomizes daring creativity a quality that has continued to permeate through the Maison since its beginnings in 1874. From his frst workshop in La Cote- aux- Fees, Georges-Edouard Piaget devoted himself to crafting high-precision movements in a feat that formed the very foundations of our pioneering name. In the late 1950s, Piaget unveiled the ultra-thin movements that would later become the Maison’s trademark and the cornerstone of the Altiplano collection. As a true innovator of the watch and jewellery world, Piaget strongly believed in creativity and artistic values. It is within the walls of our Ateliers de l’Extraordinaire where master artisans continue to harness rare skills that have been preserved and perfected from generation to generation, transforming gold, stones and precious gems into dazzling works of art. Through its pursuit of masterful craftsmanship, the Maison has created emblems of daring excellence channelled into its collections including Altiplano, Piaget Polo, Limelight Gala, Possession, Piaget Sunlight, Piaget Rose and Extremely Piaget.