Thin is still in: Piaget remains master of svelte elegance

Piaget continues the revelry, which started with last year’s Sunny Side of Life collection, by celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Altiplano, its ultrathin watch that redefined the boundaries of movement and design in haute watchmaking.

This refocus of attention switches the spotlight back onto Piaget’s most important collections, and continues its upbeat disposition towards business. The debut of the manual-winding 9P timepiece in 1957 revealed a movement just 2mm thin, a first that Piaget followed three years later with another, launching the 2.3mm 12P automatic movement.

These innovations spawned a flurry of activity in Swiss workshops that reaped the benefits ultrathin movements could offer in terms of design. While a handful of respected watchmakers have since excelled in thin movements, Piaget remains the master of svelte elegance.

Refinement comes with age and the anniversary collection is as stylish as its predecessors. It rekindles Piaget’s passion for drama with coloured stone dials, and artistic interpretations that give a new vibrancy to a sexagenarian.

“We develop great products for great people and when people buy watches and jewellery they are in a good mood, so we need to be very positive; and colour historically is very important to Piaget,” says CEO Philippe Léopold-Metzger.

“We want to look at the future in a very positive way and this is something which is important. We recognise that our business is to provide pleasure.”

At the upper end of the pleasure spectrum are timepieces that befit a diamond anniversary and combine some of the rarest crafts in watchmaking: feather marquetry and gold lacework.

Piaget’s relationship with feather artist Émilie Moutard-Martin began two years ago with its Secrets and Lights collection, and continues with the Altiplano Feather Marquetry. A mixture of duck, peacock and rooster feathers, brushed and cut to shape span majestically from a dial composed of the same, but much smaller feathers, creating the illusion of a peacock in haute couture.

Meanwhile, the Altiplano Double Jeu Gold Lacework triumphs in a series of superthin threads of sculptured lacework achieved by a process of tracing, drilling and cutting gold. Piaget teamed up with Sara Bran,the only artist specialising in lace making on gold, to create the timepiece.