Page 100 - BFM F/W 2024

Master of Ceramic Arts
The new Piaget Polo Skeleton Ceramic adds a luxurious new material to the brand’s watchmaking palette
By Jeremy Freed
IT’S BEEN A BIG YEAR FOR PIAGET. FOLLOWING THE LAUNCHES OF the Polo 79 and the Altiplano Ultimate Concept Tourbillon — a much-celebrated revival of the brand’s era-defining 1970s design, and a tourbillon measuring just 2 mm thick, respectively — one might not think a follow-up was needed, but 2024 is no ordinary year for the Swiss watchmaker. As the brand reaches its 150th anniversary, this year has been about reminding the world that there are a few things Piaget does exceptionally well. With its ultra-thin self-winding movement, skeletonized dial, and a case made out of matte black ceramic, the new Piaget Polo Skeleton Ceramic serves as a reminder of past triumphs and a step toward the future.
“Each product launch this year is rooted in our DNA, telling a saga and a story. Here, this piece is telling our mastery of ultra-thinness but also our art of the skeleton,” explains Piaget CEO Benjamin Comar. “Every product has different layers and depending on the angle you can see our saga of shapes, distinction, and boldness. It’s a beautiful take on the Piaget Polo
Collection, blending our signatures into a different look.”
Piaget has been in the watchmaking business since 1874 and has spent
the last 150 years establishing itself as one of the most respected names in horology. While perhaps best known for its ultra-thin movements, beginning in 1957 with the introduction of the famed 9P calibre, the brand has also built a strong reputation in watchmaking savoir faire and design. Skeletonization, the process of painstakingly excising a watch dial to reveal the intricate workings of the movement beneath, has been a Piaget hallmark since at least 1948. This tradition continued in highly limited editions through the following decades, including a spectacular diamond-studded example made for jazz legend Miles Davis in the 1980s. Likewise, the brand’s jewellery-inspired approach to design and materials — famously exemplified by the sculptural yellow gold case of the original Piaget Polo — has been a through-line of its creations since its earliest days as a watch brand.
If the Piaget Polo Skeleton Ceramic looks familiar, that’s entirely by design. Its distinctive case shape, skeleton dial, and overall blend of sportiness and
finesse have been the pillars of Piaget’s identity for decades. What’s unfamiliar, however, is ceramic, a material never before used in a Piaget creation. Famously focused on traditional luxury metals for its cases (Piaget didn’t introduce its first steel Polo until 2016), the addition of ceramic was a natural, if challenging, extension of the brand’s aesthetic philosophy, Comar says. “Piaget has always been about a mix of colours, textures, and materials, but ceramic is hard to manufacture, and staying within the ultra-thin category while developing a new case and material was a challenge that we had to solve.”
The product of three years of development, the new Polo Skeleton Ceramic stays true to the spirit of its forebears while offering a modern new look. Building on the original design of the Polo — which Yves Piaget created in 1979 to appeal to a new generation of jet-setting clients who wanted to balance the refinement of a traditional luxury watch and the style of a sports watch — the ceramic case adds an ethereal lightness and unique sheen to the uncanny thinness of the Polo Skeleton. To solve the challenge of creating an ultra-thin case out of ceramic, Piaget added a special titanium container between the ceramic case and the movement. Treated with black DLC to match the watch’s ceramic components, it lends a bold tone-on-tone look while allowing an overall thickness of 7.5 mm — just 1 mm thicker than Piaget Polo Skeleton models in steel and gold.
The watch’s moody aesthetic is contrasted by SuperLumiNova accents on the indexes and hands that lend it an altogether different character in low light. A Piaget logo on the oscillating weight which, thanks to the skeleton dial is visible from the front of the watch, is another first. Arriving on the heels of the brand’s other 2024 creations — each of which speaks to a different milestone of Piaget’s 150-year journey to the highest echelons of watchmaking — the new Polo Skeleton Ceramic fits seamlessly among its peers. More importantly, however, it’s as much a tool for marking the hours and minutes as it is a beautiful object. “It’s mesmerizing,” Comar says. “There is a sense of poetry in this open artwork. It’s really something you gaze at, always discovering new elements and losing track of time just by looking at it.”
100 BFM / FW24 WATCH / MASTER OF CERAMIC ARTS