Maison Piaget celebrates its 150th anniversary with a virtuoso High Jewellery watch collection highlighting the extravagance and elegance of a unique style – Piaget – Essence Of Extraleganza. Paying tribute to its incomparably masterful use of gold and colour, the watchmaking and jewellery Maison reinvents itself through some hundred bold, captivating pieces where the fluidity of cuff bracelets and necklaces and the radiance of the gemstones adorning them are magnified by the excellence of perfectly accomplished savoir-faire.
Exalting the Piaget spirit
The early Piaget style took shape in 1969 when this specialist of ultra-slim movements, established at La Côte-aux- Fées in 1874, launched the now iconic “21st Century Collection”. Shaped by “artisans who work like artists” who “always do better than necessary”, this array of jewellery watches makes an impression with its avant-garde signature. Precious metal takes on a fabric-like texture, mingling with ornamental stones in vibrant colours to awaken organic cuffs and unchained long necklaces… A new way to wear time.
To celebrate its 150th anniversary in 2024, Piaget rekindles its creative golden years of the 1960s and 1970s. “In 2022, when we began to design the 150 year anniversary collection,” recalls Stéphanie Sivrière, the Piaget jewellery and watch artistic director, “it wasn’t about identically reproducing heritage pieces, but rather taking inspiration from them. Revisiting those values of boldness, originality and elegance that characterise this Maison’s soul at the dawn of modernity.”
Supported by the exceptional craftsmanship demonstrated at the Piaget High Jewellery workshops in Geneva, these 96 pieces are an invitation to celebrate that art of living – cheerful yet sophisticated, extravagant and colourful – which characterises its jewellery creations. “Essence of Extraleganza” makes gold the subject and gemstones a true style element. It sets apart the women and men who will wear these pieces as free spirits seeking distinction.
With a richness rarely achieved in terms of design, in the diversity of gemstones and range of designs, this 150th anniversary collection unveils its jewels in each of three emblematic Piaget realms: “Extraleganza”, “Piaget Society”, and “When mastery ignites artistry”.
Extraleganza
Named for its fusion of “extravagance” and “elegance”, this first chapter reveals the jeweller’s creative soul and avant-garde taste, adorned models set with exceptional stones in gold and light.
The spectacular Swinging Sautoir in turquoise, malachite, and yellow sapphire – a signature Piaget piece since 1969 – is a perfect demonstration. The jeweller showcases remarkable magnificence and fluidity by offering three different ways to wear it. Threaded onto a manually gem-set, diamond-paved gold chain, the blue and green beads include an aquamarine of 6.11 carats and a fabulous Sri Lankan yellow sapphire of 29.24 carats. These gems crown a pendant watch with a trapezoid dial in turquoise and diamonds which can be detached and worn on the wrist thanks to an innovative system that clips onto a bracelet.
Piaget brings its full, distinctive sense of flamboyance to this fiery jewellery set in carnelian, spessartite garnets, yellow sapphires, and diamonds. A masterpiece of virtuosity, the necklace asserts a striking orange gradation in trapezoid-cut carnelian set into rose gold. These ornamental stones mingle with diamonds and are mounted on an entirely hand-crafted rose gold chain, illuminated here and there with brilliant-cut diamonds and yellow sapphires. A cushion-cut spessartite garnet of 21.23 carats blazes at the heart of the necklace, reflected in a coordinating ring and pair of earrings.
This transformable cuff bracelet in gold, pink sapphire, and spessartite garnet perfectly condenses the jeweller’s creativity and savoir-faire. In addition to the couture influence of the jewellery’s shape, the Piaget taste for carefully wrought asymmetry emerges through rose gold Milanese mesh edged with diamonds and topped with an articulated bracelet in textured gold latticework. Engraved with the famous Palace Decor – which the jeweller designed in the early 1960s –, this precious metal is set with a pink sapphire of 4.42 carats from Madagascar and a spessartite garnet of 6.40 carats.
Inspired by a piece created in 1984, this titanium scarf necklace appears to be cut from a cloud of multicoloured silk. Sapphires, spessartite garnets, tourmalines. The 1,500 stones that compose it are set into bezels of corresponding colours, judiciously arranged according to their chromatic intensity.
This piece has an undeniable presence despite its airiness, and is accompanied by a bracelet, a ring, and a pair of earrings. The jeweller has crafted a bi-colour version in the same spirit, set with blue sapphires and colourless diamonds.
It took more than two years of research to assemble this exceedingly rare array of round emeralds, showcased on a unique white gold necklace. The beauty of this piece, set with more than 30 carats of green gems, arises from its interlacing links, which offer a brilliant play on texture and various cuts of gemstones: round and baguette-cut emeralds, brilliant-cut diamond paving, and gold engraved with the Palace Decor. This flawlessly draping piece is completed by a divine ring, set with a Colombian emerald of 5.72 carats mounted atop a round-and-baguette diamond marquetry design. A second ring, two pairs of earrings, and an ultra-slim watch with a flying tourbillon movement further complement the set.
The blue symphony – an undeniably distinctive Piaget signature – is expressed in this V-shaped necklace, richly ornamented with gemstones. At the centre of the piece, an oval Madagascan blue sapphire of 13.05 carats and a double row of sapphires, tourmalines, and marquise-cut aquamarine are surrounded by a cascade of opals, turquoise and diamonds, as well as Palace Decor-engraved gold. Coordinating with it is the jeweller’s great speciality, an ear adornment, which casts a magical spell around the ear. A ring completes this jewellery set, of which each piece features the added flourish of being engraved on the back with the Palace Decor.
When mastery ignites artistry
Under the combined influence of the Maison’s virtuosity in craftsmanship and the historical Piaget taste for the couture theme, this realm brings precious textures to gold while offering a it whole new fluidity.
Coiled gold, the common thread of this High Jewellery collection, fits around this remarkable cuff featuring an extraordinary pairing of 26 rose and violet sapphires for a total of nearly 56 carats. The gold ropes, which appear to float in mid-air, follow the organic shape of each gemstone, demonstrating the jeweller’s unparalleled savoir-faire in crafting precious metal. In the same spirit, Piaget proposes a ring set with a violet sapphire and an exuberant pair of earrings adorned with 18 matching sapphires.
It is no small feat to unearth some forty Colombian baguette-cut emeralds, but here the accomplishment takes the form of an exceptional watch ornamented with 26.11 carats of the green stones. This one-of-a-kind piece drips with a mosaic of baguette-cut emeralds and diamonds, which even overflow along the sides, bringing the piece a truly original look. Articulated and underscored with a coil of yellow gold, each element is mounted on a different level to accentuate the depth of this creation. The exquisite refinement of this watch, with a dial in green enamel, demonstrates the mastery with which Piaget revisits its heritage. It is accompanied by a ring featuring a bold design where diamonds are offset from the setting, scattering from an emerald of 2.53 carats. Meanwhile, an extraordinary solitaire highlights a pear-cut D diamond of 4.15 carats of which the line is modernised by a marquetry of baguette-cut diamonds and coiled yellow gold threads. Piaget completes the set with an asymmetrical pair of earrings.
This one-of-a-kind collection, emblematic of Piaget’s dual savoir-faire in watchmaking and jewellery, exemplifies the Maison’s perfectionism in crafting the tiniest detail. Here, past and present fuse together to unveil a new virtuosity.
Piaget Society
This second chapter celebrates the boldness of Piaget and its distinctive approach to jewellery. Here, richly coloured pieces make use of design and contract among gems to form a metaphor for the whirlwind life of those who wear them.
The avant-garde elegance of this hand-coiled rose gold necklace directly references the Maison’s heritage. The neo-Seventies extravagance of its design, with a fluidity that follows each of the body’s movements, is characterised by solid and slender shapes with a succession of empty circles and ovals, large opal plaques, and snow-set diamond surfaces. In the same vein are a double-tiered ring, a pair of earrings, and a marvellous watch designed by the Maison known as the “jeweller of time”.
Like a fabulous lasso that wraps around the neck, this long necklace features more than 1,300 turquoise cabochons set into rose gold. It creates the illusion of being a rope made up of blue gems, of which the incredible colour intensity is reinforced by six imposing turquoise beads. The fluidity of this charismatic piece is heightened by two pompoms of fine gold chain finished with turquoise points. It is accompanied by a transformable cuff bracelet with gold and diamond fringes that conceal a turquoise watch dial. A pair of earrings further complements the set. In a reference to the Maison’s iconic cocktail pieces, this voluptuous set plays on textural effects. Opaque and radiant, the necklace showcases turquoise beads of various sizes against a jumble of marquise-cut green tourmalines and brilliant-cut diamond-paved lozenge shapes. Crowning the composition is a pear-cut Sri Lankan yellow sapphire of 16.83 carats. To accompany it, a fascinating green tourmaline of 26.55 carats is set into an ebony ring dotted with diamonds and lagoon tourmalines. Also crafted in natural wood, a massive cuff edged with turquoise and tourmalines is adorned with a diamond straw which transforms into a brooch.
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 channeled into its collections including Altiplano, Piaget Polo, Limelight Gala, Possession, Piaget Sunlight, Piaget Rose and Extremely Piaget.