Piaget Leans Into Paris Connection With 150th Anniversary High Jewelry Exhibition

What’s a milestone celebration without some jewelry?

After watches, Piaget is bringing out its best jewels with the “Essence of Extraleganza” high jewelry collection, which will be the highlight of a week-long exhibition at Palais Brogniart starting Tuesday.

Open to the public by appointment from Thursday to Sunday, the exhibition will head to Shanghai in September and Seoul in November.

For Piaget’s artistic director Stéphanie Sivrière, imagining a collection for the house’s 150th anniversary was about diving into its patrimony to get a sense of the strongest currents that underpinned its creative development.

Through the 96-piece collection, with more than 40 of them presented in Paris, Sivrière would like visitors to take away that Piaget is “a jeweler and a watchmaker unlike others, particularly through our work on materials.”

“What I leaned into was the know-how of the house, particularly those that were a little forgotten like chain-making or mesh, but also the work on hard stones, gold braiding — and timekeeping jewels,” she said.

An era that embodied this spirit in Sivrière’s opinion is the cusp of the 1970s. According to the creative, “1969 was a particular highlight for the house where daring and freedom jewelry watches peaked, so I really centered there.”

They therefore take pride of place in the anniversary collection.

Among the key pieces in the collection is an emerald-set cuff watch bracelet. Some 200 elements have been assembled and hand-adjusted on a twisted mesh bracelet that houses 36 baguette-cut eye-clean Colombian emeralds totaling over 26 carats. Its price is said to be above the 2 million euros mark, making one of the most expensive pieces in the collection.

She also made multiple wears into a talking point.

Case in point: a Swinging Sautoir with a twisted gold chain carrying fringes of malachite and turquoise beads. The 29-carat cushion-cut Sri Lankan yellow sapphire and 6-carat aquamarine lead to a watch, which can be detached and placed on a bracelet to become a precious wrist ornament.

“I enjoy giving the client different ways of wearing [pieces]. It’s rather nice — and makes it easier to sell — because it gives a second life to the pieces depending on the mood, the style of the event,” she said. “Since we are a watchmaker and a jeweler, having a watch that turns into a jewel and vice-versa is always a good way to embrace that.”

Jewels that don’t tell time are also well represented.

Standing out is a necklace shaped like a radiating collar made of rows of engraved Decor Palace engraving, set with 30 carats’ worth of round Colombian emeralds, a rather rare cut for this gem.

A necklace styled like a rope with gold pompoms, featuring 1,300 cabochon turquoise, was another highlight. “It’s crazy in terms of work because everything is supple but made of twisted gold,” Sivrière said. “It was a technical prowess to put that in place and keep the movement.”