Piaget

Piaget
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Benjamin Comar
Benjamin Comar
One hundred and forty years’ worth of uninterrupted history have allowed Piaget to forge its unique jewellery and watchmaking expertise. The Brand is a genuine Fine Watchmaking manufacture that brings together the art of ultraflat technology and the finest jewel-setting, characterised by its undyingly elegant and refined aesthetics.

It was in 1874 that Georges Edouard Piaget set up his first watchmaking workshop on the family farm at La Côte-aux-Fées in the Swiss Jura. He devoted himself to making high-precision movements, supplying them to the most prestigious brands. The business soon expanded; Georges Edouard Piaget’s movements and knowhow gained recognition abroad, and the small workshop took off.

In 1911, Timothée Piaget continued the work of his father with the same degree of enthusiasm, and the workshop became a manufacture. It was not until 1943, however, that Piaget registered his name as a brand name. Ever since, the erstwhile family workshop has been making watches marketed using its own brand name.

Gérald and Valentin Piaget, the founder’s grandsons, led the Firm towards fresh horizons, further enhancing its international reputation. On the strength of its success, in 1945 Piaget had a new manufacture built in its native village and very soon began to excel in the production of the ultraflat movements that were to become the hallmark of the manufacture from 1957 onwards. During the 1960s, it extended its knowhow to jewellery, entering into partnership with goldsmiths. Piaget launched daring jewellery watches, such as the cuff watch. The Piaget Polo – the Firm’s other iconic avant-garde timepiece – came out in 1979.

In 1996, the Firm demonstrated its commitment to protecting world heritage by taking part in the restoration of the Clock Tower in Venice, a legendary monument to the history of horology.

Confirming its ascent, in 2001 Piaget opened a new manufacture in Plan-les-Ouates, complete with its own R&D department. The flattest automatic movement and watch in the world were developed there in 2010, and released two years later in a skeleton version.

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