Hollalla! It is Warhol-here and Warhol-there when you just take a look at Piaget in these days. And with "Watches & Wonders" 2026 around the corner (mid April 2026) and the high price paid by Piaget to the Warhol-foundation to use the name of the characteristic artist, it would be a surprise if the theme is not further dragged out. But this may be just a short-term way to maximize the profit from this connection -- if at all. I fear that inflating and paradeting around a connection to a somewhat polarizing artist (to put it with all due respect and care) like a monstrance won't ultimately be enough to recapture the glory of the old days of Piaget – that requires more creativity and especially more risk. Whether the company in this setup and with this staff could and wants to take such is a big question.

Let me just point out that Andrew Warhola aka Andy Warhol owned more than 300 watches and just approx a handful (some say 4; some say 7) of them were Piaget. So, to make the point: if every brand of the other >295 watches now starts to run the artist-connection just like Piaget did for the last couple of years, then we will see a Warholla-Watches & Wonders in all of Geneva for the next decades. Alas!

Also, of these (lets say) 7 Piagets owned by the artist was just one with a stonedial: a tigereye on a Ladies-Cuffwatch. But Piaget nowadays pumps these cheap but striking stonedials like it is 1969 -- a time when just Piaget could make these nice sliced stones (0.7mm): it was expensive and a risk back then; it is the opposite of that today. Instead Warhols most popular, the oversized Beta21 Piaget reference 15102 had a purple-aubergine-grey-anthracite-colored sunburst-dial with the Piaget-signature Parallax- / Perspective-indexes -- each handcut and -finished and unique and well-positioned on its specific place on the dial to generate the deep 3D-effect. And it could be assumed that it was this impressive & Piaget-unique dial and effect that made him want this significant watch. Another one was an amazing sliding-watch in a goldbar. Is that something special; something exalted? I think so, yes and especially in a time when gold is jumping from one record-price to another: 1974ff. Then we see a deca-gonal Emperador of the late 1970s in his collection -- WOW! The Emperador. These watches are outstanding even in todays standards and back then they were simply the best that was available: heavy, super-precise hand-made by the best goldsmiths, robust and absolutely no costs spared. These pinnacles were the heaviest and finest artefacts of highest Genevan goldsmithing; they appeared like avant-garde but at the same time like an anachronism in the late 70s with the goldprice moving erratic but steady upward towards 20 times the level it had at the start of the decade 1970, just less than 10y before. Avant-garde because of its design (Jean-Claude Gueit), its link-technique and its movement; an anachronism because of its weight, its lavish gold and its pure manufacturing (manu-facture: create by hand) according to the peak of the art of goldsmithing. Remember, these pieces were all-handmade in heavy all-solid gold while all of the competition (all: Patek, AP, VC, IWC etc) was proud of selling CNC-cut steel for the price of gold (see Audemars Piguet-ads from 1973ff.). And Piaget stood firm on the exact opposite end of the spectrum and presented the Emperador -- what a move; what a risk; what a chuzpe. In this light: Was that Emperador a special and interesting watch that allured the artist; something outstanding? Well... YES!

It were these outstanding -- in the sense of the word: not part of the crowd -- timepieces that attracted Warhols attention. And it were these original products that created this natural connection between the risk-taking Piaget-family and the artist with his fine senses & instincts for something special and... outstanding (sorry for repeating and shuffling only 9 words and making it a full article;-).

And how this compares to the current safety belt-strategy with machine-made re-editions of Piaget these days is left to the reader.

Photos by Piaget.