Piaget for SIHH 2019: Ultra-thin watchmaking, exceptional gem-setting and an expanded focus on meteorites

 

Piaget’s SIHH collection unites core watchmaking strengths with a celestial touch.

Swiss luxury watchmaker and jeweller Piaget presents three new Altiplano timepieces at SIHH 2019. The new pieces blend watchmaking with the precise skills associated with working in precious stones. These stones, formed under tremendous heat and pressure and extracted from deep beneath the earth’s surface, highlight the eternal brilliance of a Piaget timepiece.

The 36mm Altiplano High Jewellery is an essential model in the elegant collection of Piaget, speaking to the feminine wearer and those who appreciate classic watch proportions alike. For the first time, it comes set with baguette diamonds on the bezel and dial, and a sunray-brushed dial in Piaget Blue, limited to an edition of 88 pieces.

The baguette cut is known for its discretion and refinement. In the SIHH 36mm Altiplano High Jewellery, the baguette diamonds frame the watch and mark out the dial quarters. This particular shade of deep blue, somewhere between cobalt and midnight blue, has defined the maison through the decades and most recently anchored the anniversary collection of Piaget Altiplano watches shown at the 2017 SIHH.

The celestial influence becomes even more pronounced in the 41mm white-gold Altiplano Tourbillon, distinguished by a blue meteorite dial encircled by diamonds. Hours and minutes are indicated via the hallmark Piaget Altiplano baton hands and indices at eight o’clock, while the whirling dance of the flying tourbillon at the two o’clock position recalls the rotation of planetary bodies in a dark blue firmament.

The distinctive lines on the surface of the meteorite are known as Widmanstätten patterns, typical of the crystallised nickel-iron structures found within iron meteorites. This type of meteorite is speculated to date from the very beginnings of the cataclysmic events that result in the creation of solar systems. Just as diamonds are crystallised records of conditions deep within the earth, meteorites are crystallised records of the birth of galaxies.

The 41mm Altiplano Tourbillon, limited to 28 pieces, represents the height of Piaget’s prowess in gem-setting, decorative stone dials and ultra-thin high watchmaking. Completing the trio of Piaget’s SIHH creations is, fittingly, a watch that embodies the purest expressions of essential Piaget — the pink-gold 40mm Altiplano with grey meteorite dial and a simple distillation of time told in hours and minutes, with a date window at three o’clock.

The combination of pink gold with the grey meteorite and pink-gold indices is a step removed from the high contrast beauty of the 36mm and 41mm models, but more fully showcases the subtle nuances of the meteorite as a material. The 40mm Piaget Altiplano in pink gold with grey meteorite dial is limited to an edition of 300 pieces.