Piaget: Watches and Wonders Since 1874

In the small Swiss town of La Cote-aux-Fees in 1874 the Piaget family began making watchworks that quickly became the preferred movements of the most prestigious watchmakers in Europe. After the end of World War II, the Piaget company built a state-of-the-art factory and captured new markets, gaining more women clients by developing ultra-thin watches. Piaget became synonymous with luxury timepieces, and in the 1960s it leaped to international fame as the company opened a showroom in Geneva and presented products embellished with precious stones. The 1970s saw the debut of ultra-thin electronic mechanisms, and in the following decade clients commissioned Piaget to create the most precious watches in the world. In 1988 Piaget joined forces with Cartier and launched the great Piaget collections for the next millennium. This lavishly illustrated volume details the unique characteristics of Piaget movements, both wind-up and automatic; the crafting of quality watches by hand and by computerized machinery, in a melding of tradition and modernity; the creation of Piaget's trademark supple watchbands woven of gold wire; the quartz revolution; and the most recent and unique commissioned creations from the house of Piaget.