Piaget will return to the very essence of its style, celebrating the power and radiant energy of its signature goldwork with ‘The House of Gold’ exhibition, marked by inspiring collaborations with artists and designers from the region. The brand launches two special editions of the magnificent Gala: the Piaget Limelight Gala G0A48168 and Piaget Gala Art Dubai G0A49215.
Art Dubai is a key event in the international contemporary art scene, which has always held special interest for Piaget. This part of the world has been close to the Piaget family’s hearts since the 1960s. “Taking part in the 17th edition of Art Dubai in 2024, during Piaget’s grand celebration of its 150th anniversary, was an undeniable and natural choice for us,” explained Benjamin Comar, Piaget CEO.
It is a space for creative fusion, celebrating long-standing icons as well as their contemporary reinterpretations, all linked by a common thread: the wonders of goldwork. Gold is the noblest of materials. Endlessly alluring, it is melted, mastered, and painstakingly carved and engraved by the craftspeople of the ‘Ateliers de l’Extraordinaire’, who work in secrecy in Piaget’s Genevan workshops. Under their expert eyes and skilful hands, unique pieces come to life in a precious blend of High Watchmaking and High Jewellery.
“We are delighted to welcome Piaget to Art Dubai as our high jewellery and watch partner — an iconic brand that shares our vision for art, artistry, and excellence,” stated Benedetta Ghione, Art Dubai’s Executive Director. In one corner, a Swinging Sautoir necklace is crafted to give its wearer a new way of reading the time. Elsewhere, Limelight Gala watches are bestowed with the Maison’s couture charm, and cuffs are created by combining textured effects with the colours of ornamental stones. The virtuosity at work in the watchmaking ateliers is just as remarkable, highlighting the art of making Piaget’s ultra-thin timepieces, from the very first versions to the Piaget Polo Perpetual Calendar Ultra-Thin models recently released by the Manufacture. The culmination of Piaget’s ‘House of Gold expertise will be the presentation of a truly iconic timepiece, fully sculpted from the most precious of metals to form a rare piece of artistry, both a fine bracelet and a watch: the Piaget Polo 79. The legendary watch will be unveiled at Art Dubai, setting the tone for the 150th-anniversary celebrations ahead of the unmissable ‘Watches and Wonders’ event in April.
This spirit lives on today with two creative collaborations that will be unveiled at the 17th edition of Art Dubai. Firstly, a limited edition of Piaget’s Limelight Gala watch will appear, reinvented by designer Shamsa Alabbar. The piece is a hypnotic reinterpretation of typography and Arabic graphic design conveyed through the sweeping curves of the iconic jewellery watch. Secondly, Piaget will give carte blanche to the artist Razan Alazzouni, who has already taken part in a duet with Piaget to reinterpret the Possession jewellery collection. This time, she will takes inspiration from another version of the Limelight Gala, made of gold with a marquetry of ornamental stones. The result? Perfect harmony, springing from an unexpected meeting of minds from two different cultures, a meeting of different times and worlds, naturally feeding into each other and writing a new chapter in Piaget’s history of Extraleganza.
Gold, the noblest of metals, possessing the colour of the Sun and the everlasting sheen, runs through Piaget‘s story as a gleaming seam of creative inspiration, with the power to drive innovation, ingenuity and imagination.
The glories and glamour of gold must have seemed a distant dream for watchmaker Georges-Édouard Piaget, when in 1874 he set up a workshop in the family farmhouse, in La Côte-aux-Fées, Switzerland.
By the 1950s the family-run company had become a Maison, garnering a global reputation for excellence and innovation that was sealed by their development, in 1957, of an ultra-thin movement, the 9P, a masterpiece of precision that changed the course of Swiss watchmaking history and the fortunes of Piaget.
The slenderness of the movement stimulated all kinds of ideas for new designs, unleashing the audacious creativity that was to become a Piaget signature. The company now had the freedom to create its own style, and in 1957, under the inspired direction of Gerald and Valentin Piaget, made the decision to work only with precious metals, gold and platinum. Before venturing further into the realm of the jewellery watch, through dials of coloured hardstones and gold bracelets.
By the 1960s, the scene was set for Piaget’s Golden Age of creativity and audacity. In 1969, at the Basel Fair, Piaget unveiled the 21st Century collection, a series of strikingly contemporary, fabulously fashion-forward jewellery watches– the perfect marriage of Watchmaking and High Jewellery. In tune with Piaget’s ethos, and its determination to aim ever higher and to break through conventions, the suitably futuristic 21st collection was unlike anything that had gone before: deep cuffs of graphic gold openwork, heavily textured gold bracelets, swinging twisted gold chain sautoirs vibrant coloured dials.
Gold was the shining hero of the collection. Piaget’s gold craftsmanship maximised this exuberance, drawing out life and warmth, tactility and sensuality, exploring the versatility of gold in order to turn timepieces into thrilling jewellery masterworks.
So much so that the dramatic watches in the 21st-century collection were hailed in the press as the watches ‘of the international elite’.
Instinctively, with acute antennae, Piaget understood that gold embodied the spirit of the age : the fading formality of the ‘50s, new wealth, new social order, youthquake, Studio 54, hippie-luxe and the glittering international circle of artists, musicians, models, actors, fashion designers that made up Piaget’s elite clientele, the Piaget Society. Gold promised positivity, and signified success rather than status, a meritocracy instead of aristocracy, and an unapologetic pride in personal achievement and self-expression.
Gold was, and is still today, central to the philosophy and spirit of the Maison. So vital is gold to Piaget’s vision and values, that the metal is melted in-house, in the Maison’s own foundry in Geneva. From here, the gold is passed into the expert hands of Piaget’s artisan goldsmiths, who work the gold into the panoply of thrilling shapes, forms, textures, sculpted, woven, braided, engraved, continually evolving and expanding.
One of the most dramatic features of the 21st Century Collection was the heavily textured, rugged engraved gold of daringly wide watch bracelets. Decor Palace, a defining feature of Piaget’s goldwork was first developed in 1961, inspired by guilloché engraving.
This treatment broke with entrenched traditions of smooth, polished surfaces, of gold as a supporting act to gemstones, turning gold from a structural necessity into the main event, a thrillingly expressive, decorative feature in its own right. The rhythmic, fluid Decor Palace engraving requires a very particular skill. The grooves and lines of different depths and thicknesses, flowing in slightly different directions, are incised into the gold, by hand, using the sharp tip of a burin, one line at a time, to obtain the desired effect. Gold shavings are gently blown away from the surface by the goldsmith after each gesture. While the overall effect is cohesive and distinctive, each goldsmith has his or her own technique, maybe exerting different pressure, working at different angles, so that each Decor Palace ornamentation is entirely individual.
This is a sign of the human touch that is so vital to Piaget. Through the years, the technique has been passed down through generations of goldsmiths, refined and evolved, so that this unique style of engraving can transform solid gold into tree bark, ice crystals, snakeskin scales, the glimmering surface of a Swiss lake, undulating ribbons of silk. Decor Palace, applied to watches and jewellery remains one of the most distinctive, and best-loved of Piaget signatures.
Piaget’s gold artistry and virtuoso craftsmanship have always worked together harmoniously to create an unmistakable Piaget signature, with crafts skills at the service of design.
Radiance becomes a recurring theme in Piaget artistry, seen to perfection in the use of marquise-cut diamonds, arranged around a Limelight Gala dial for example, like the rays of the sun. Or the specialist engraving techniques that draw radiant light from the metal, so that it shimmers across surfaces and textures.
Experienced, skilled artisans hand-work gold to celebrate its extraordinary, emotive, deliquescent qualities: in Piaget’s specialist Métiers d‘Or ateliers, gold is modelled, sculpted, engraved, woven, buffed, brushed, polished and articulated, to bring out richness and refinement, to play with light, texture, dynamism. Like magicians, the artisans conjure images and associations, turning gold into silk, basketweave or tree bark.
The mesmerising molten beauty of gold has long fascinated artists. Salvador Dali was captivated by the association of gold with mysticism and alchemy, particularly by the allure of gold coins and medals. In the late 1960s, he minted his own series of coins, of different values and weights, sculpted with profile portraits of himself and his wife Gala. He called them Dali D’Or. In the late 60s, Yves Piaget, who moved in artistic circles, wanted the world to understand that the dramatically new Piaget creations were contemporary works of art. He nurtured a connection with art and artists, starting with Dali. In 1967, Piaget collaborated with Dali on an exclusive collection of watches and jewellery incorporating the artist’s Dali d’Or coins. The collection harked back to Piaget’s early coin watches, a huge vogue in the 1950s, in which gold coins, of all countries and denominations, formed dial covers, usually on gold bracelets. The Piaget Dali d’or collection was launched with much theatrical fanfare in the Hotel Meurice, Paris, with Dali, enthroned in a transparent chair, as if suspended in mid-air.
Ten years after the unveiling of the 21st Century Collection, Piaget decided to demonstrate its mastery of gold with the Piaget Polo, the company’s first sports watch.
The Piaget Polo appealed to Piaget’s clientele of glitterati, many of whom, like Yves Piaget himself, played or watched polo, the sport of kings. With a case shaped between a circle and a square, the Piaget Polo captured the unisex zeitgeist of the 1970s, with models for both men and women. At the same time the new watch encapsulated the high-octane glamour and hedonistic lifestyle of the international polo set, as they travelled around the world, from match to match.
Made entirely of solid 18 carat gold, the case and bracelet were totally integrated, more seamlessly than ever before, in a sleek, streamlined, yet fluid and voluptuous design. The overall effect was as if the watch was crafted from a single cast of gold. The simplicity of the silhouette was countered by the richness of gold that appeared to flow over the watch, flooding it with light and warmth. Emphasising the flow, and the sporty dynamism of the design, the linear gadrooned decoration of the articulated bracelet extended over and across the case and dial. In true Piaget style, the artisans played with texture, contrasting the highly polished gadroons with the satin-brushed finish of the links. The Piaget Polo 79 quickly became a status symbol amongst the jet set elite, a badge of belonging to the Piaget society, while the authenticity of the concept of the watch was underlined by Piaget’s sponsorship of the Palm Beach Polo world cup.
Today, celebrating Piaget’s 150th anniversary, the Piaget Polo 79 is reborn, as a limited edition in full gold. Reminding what the celebrated advertisements of the 80s stated, Piaget Time can only be measured in gold.
Ref. G0A49188
Movement
Case
Dial
Ref. G0A49215 – limited edition 20p by Shamsa Alabbar
Movement
Case
Dial
