Last week Yves Piaget, the chairman of luxury jewelry and watchmaking company Piaget, was in town to celebrate its new collection of jewels, Mediterranean Garden, as well as the brand’s first comprehensive tome on the 140-year history of the brand. The collection, as well as the book, were highly anticipated, and one of the jewels meant to be on display at Piaget’s Fifth Avenue boutique had already been shipped back to Geneva for a client, according to the brand’s North American president Larry Boland. How important was the client? Very, very important. At $1.2 million, it was the most expensive piece in the collection.
As for the beautiful new book, it took two years to put together. “My family had almost no archives. Even my father, the business’ third generation, didn’t like to talk about himself, ” Piaget told The Daily. “So they didn’t keep so many documents around. The most important work was to find the archives and settle the whole thing.” The book, which was written by fashion historian and writer Florence Müller, documents everything from when Georges-Édouard Piaget founded the business in 1874 at the age of 19 in La Côte-aux-Fées, to lust-worthy visuals of their most exquisite jewels and historical documentation of their prized watches. Piaget is known for making the thinnest movement in a mechanical watch in the world, and the book details its history, including images of items belonging to stars like French actor Alain Delon. Plus, the book even contains many of Piaget’s old ads and studio designs.
“This book is really the link between the past and the present. I will not write the next one, you know? I’m retired now!” joked Piaget. “No, but the book is very interesting because I insisted that we talked first about the human beings in the company then the collection. I think our artisans, designers, technical, watchmakers, and jewelers are really the most important people in the company. Thanks to them, we are able to create new collections, and to develop and improve while keeping the high quality and legitimacy of being in the watchmaking business for 140 years.” The book retails for $85 and is currently available for pre-order through Abrams. As for the baubles? You’ll have to shell out quite a bit more, darlings…
