Piaget "Infinitely Personal" Concept Reimagines a Personalized Timepiece Program for the 21st Century
Personalized and custom-made timepieces are not a new concept for luxury watchmaker and jeweler Piaget. In 1960, the maison's American subsidiary created a tool, the Piaget "Style Selector," to create personalized timepieces for what it termed "Piaget high-society" — allowing buyers to customize the components, the case shape, the bezel, and the dial. Years after this program's worldwide success, the brand has now reintroduced the concept, renaming it Piaget Infinitely Personal, applying it to its recently introduced ultra-complicated timepiece, the Altiplano Tourbillon.
"We needed to make it economical but also to ensure that it would always be unique and very rare, so we added our 'Infinitely Personal' concept that will allow customers to choose more than 10,000 possibilities for this watch,” said Piaget CEO Chabi Nouri in a recent interview with WatchTime, describing the new program, launching this fall.
In 2017, Piaget celebrated the 60th anniversary of its ultra-thin movement with the launch of the Altiplano Flying Tourbillon, which featured the time at 8 o'clock and the tourbillon at 2 o'clock. "We’re very excited about making this happen, because it has been a dream for the last six years. As you know, we wanted to celebrate the 60th anniversary of our ultra-thin Caliber 9P movement from 1960 in a very significant way. So we had this crazy idea of making a full watch that would be 2 mm thick," Nouri stated in the same interview.
The Piaget Altiplano Tourbillon is known for its elegant design, thin baton-shaped hands, and slim-shaped lugs; these elements serve as the foundation of the watch, while a prospective owner now has the option to choose the case diameter — 38 mm or 41 mm — the type of case, the dial, tourbillon ring, and strap and buckle.
The 38 mm model is available with either a diamond-set white-gold or rose-gold bezel and in a wide selection of dials, including sunburst mother-of-pearl in blue, pink, red, or white colorways. Hand guilloché, gold-colored dials in translucent blue, green, teal, or a red grand feu enamel or diamond snow-paved dial are also available, as well as the option for a sunburst lacquer dial, which can match to any color.
The 41-mm model offers cases in white or rose gold, all of which can be set with brilliant-cut or baguette-cut diamonds, along with baguette-cut emeralds, sapphires or rubies. The dials options include hand-engraved guilloché enamel, grand feu versions, diamond snow-paved, and sunburst lacquered.
Both models' tourbillon rings comes in white or rose gold, set with diamonds, or engraved with a personal message; the caseback can also be personally engraved. Below are three examples of customized Altiplano models.
The first two examples (above) come in a 38-mm in diameter, 18k white gold case. Ref. G0A45034 (right) features a snow-set dial, set with an array of 521 brilliant-cut diamonds (approx 2.16k), and white-gold-colored indexes, while Ref. G0A45033 (left) features a bezel and tourbillon aperture set with 98 brilliant-cut diamonds (approx 1.20k) and a red guilloché, mother-of-pearl dial, with white gold-colored hands and indexes. Both references pair with a red alligator strap.
The third model, the 41-mm Ref. G0A45035 also comes in a white-gold case, set with 265 brilliant-cut diamonds (approx 2.42k), and 48 baguette-cut diamonds (approx 2.51k), plus one rose-cut diamond (approx 0.09k) set on the crown. The hand-guilloché gold dial, coated with a translucent grand feu, green-colored enamel, features white gold-colored indexes, and matches up with a green-colored alligator strap.
Each dial features off-centered hour and minutes at 8 o'clock, a flying tourbillon at 2 o'clock, and a seconds indication via the tourbillon carriage. Inside is Piaget's ultra-thin, hand-wound, manufacture movement 670P, composed of 157 components, including 23 jewels, and storing an approximate power reserve of 48 hours.
The Piaget Infinitely Personal Concept will be available at over 90 Piaget boutiques in 23 countries with prices varying on gem setting and the size of the case. Follow this link for the latest information on Piaget’s 2020 novelties.
