After unveiling their partnership last November and officially naming the iconic watch, Piaget and the Andy Warhol Foundation introduced a limited‑edition series of 50 pieces inspired by the artist’s Collage artwork.
Andy Warhol was not only an American visual artist and a leading figure in the pop‑art movement; he was also a film director, producer, and cultural phenomenon. At the occasion of the Warhol exhibition in Dubai last year, we gathered several milestones from his life and work – see more here.
The Black Tie watch was created by Piaget in 1972 and has long been associated with the one‑and‑only Andy Warhol. “The Pope of Pop” became a friend of the Maison after meeting Yves Piaget in 1979 in New York through Gerry Grinberg’s company, the exclusive U.S. distributor of Piaget. The two developed a close bond — Warhol was a regular member of the Piaget Society and took part in Yves Piaget’s glamorous events hosted in New York and Palm Beach.
Last autumn, Piaget announced that, under the license from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the brand and the foundation have formally renamed the Black Tie timepiece the Andy Warhol watch. The debut model, the Andy Warhol Clou de Paris, features a blue meteorite dial. Learn more about this collaboration and about the first timepiece here.
Andy Warhol Watch ‘Collage’ Limited Edition
Maison’s artistic director Stéphanie Sivrière and her team immersed themselves in Andy Warhol’s oeuvre for the collaboration. They traveled to New York to examine archives of the foundation, visit exhibitions, and research countless books dedicated to the pop artist’s extensive catalogue.
‘We spent six months researching Andy Warhol before we settled on a direction,’ says Stéphanie Sivrière. ‘With such a wealth of material to draw on, it was extremely difficult to know where to begin. Should we look to one of his most famous works and iterate on a banana, a can of soup, or perhaps Marilyn Monroe? We quickly learned that we wanted to express Warhol, but without being obvious. To suggest, rather than to show. For their part, the foundation encouraged us to approach the project with freedom and to interpret Warhol in Piaget’s expressive, unbounded style. The result is a watch that tells the story of our collaboration but that stands on its own as a piece of watchmaking art, a collectible inspired by one of history’s most prolific collectors.’
Warhol was renowned for his self‑portraits, which constitute a significant part of his artistic legacy. He would frequently employ his acetate‑collage technique not only on Polaroid collages but other works too, including his iconic portrait of Mick Jagger. Ultimately, Piaget selected one of Warhol’s most celebrated Polaroid collage self‑portraits, taken in 1986.
The dial features four ornamental stones, shaped, cut, and arranged by using the ancient métier d’art of stone marquetry. The base is black onyx – the same colour as Warhol’s own 1973 watch. It is complemented by thin slices of yellow Namibian serpentine, pink opal, and green chrysoprase.
On the back of the timepiece you can find an engraved rendition of the self-portrait, accompanied by Andy Warhol’s signature and the Piaget logo.
The watch’s stepped 45 mm case is cast in 18k yellow gold, a metal chosen in homage to Warhol’s 1973 timepiece and otherwise unavailable in the contemporary Andy Warhol Watch collection. 50 examples will be created of this model, but the collection will continue with new additions in the future.
Photo credits: Piaget. Loupiosity.com
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