Piaget celebrates its 150th anniversary this year. On the occasion the Maison presented a high jewellery collection, paying tribute to its rich heritage and its masterful use of gold and colour.
Piaget has always been associated with creativity, high society and elevated glamour – its ingenious and bold creations attracted the attention of iconic stars and socialites throughout the decades and still today.
The 150th birthday celebration has started with the relaunch of a Piaget design icon earlier this year, the Piaget Polo 79. At Watches & Wonders other novelties, like the Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept Tourbillon and a limited-edition Piaget Polo watch-duet were released.
Piaget High Jewellery 2024
Now the celebration continues with an outstanding 96-pieces high jewellery collection, which – reflecting Piaget’s dual savoir-faire in watchmaking and jewellery – includes beautiful timepieces too.
In the collection 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.’
The novelties are grouped around three chapters – ‘Extraleganza’, ‘Piaget Society’, and ‘When mastery ignites artistry’, discover a tiny selection with us.
‘Extraleganza’
The first chapter endorses Piaget philosophy, ’extraleganza’ – the well-balanced combination of extravagance and elegance.
Great example is a high jewellery sautoir watch, which has a diamond-paved set hand-twisted gold chain with malachite and turquoise beads and interspersed with yellow sapphires and brilliant-cut diamonds. Please see more about it here.
A very different colour theme characterises a fiery jewellery set made of pink gold, carnelian, spessartite garnets, yellow sapphires, and diamonds. 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 with brilliant-cut diamonds and yellow sapphires. A cushion-cut spessartite garnet of 21.23 carats is the centrepiece of the necklace, reflected in a coordinating ring and pair of earrings.
There is an interesting transformable cuff bracelet among the novelties. It is crafted in pink gold, pink sapphire, and spessartite garnet perfectly reflects 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 gold finishing technique, this precious metal is set with a pink sapphire of 4.42 ct from Madagascar and a spessartite garnet of 6.40 ct.
‘When mastery ignites artistry’
The emerald ‘high jewellery-meets-horology’ creation is one of the novelties in this chapter. This timepiece features some forty Colombian baguette-cut emeralds, 26.11 carats all together.
The 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 dial is in green enamel – beautifully paired with the emeralds – 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.
‘Piaget Society’
The loud and buzzing 60s and 70s had a great influence on Piaget’s creations, the Maison released many icons. The brand would soon be a symbol of the ‘beautiful people’ who made things happen in this era. The Piaget events became the place to be and people attending these events – the Piaget Society.
This chapter is inspired by extravagant times – such as a hand-coiled rose gold necklace directly references this heritage. The neo-Seventies piece 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 and a pair of earrings.
Visit Piaget’s website for more amazing high jewellery creations.
Source: press release. Photo credits: Piaget
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