THERE is a battle of the bulge currently taking place in the world of ultra-thin mechanical watchmaking, but Piaget’s chief executive officer (CEO) Benjamin Comar isn’t losing sleep over the increased competition.

For the longest time, the watch and jewellery maison – which will celebrate its 150th anniversary next year – has been leading the pack.

In 2020, it took home the top prize, the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Geneve – the Oscars of the watchmaking industry – for the Altiplano Ultimate Concept, which measured just 2 mm thick.

Last year, however, Bulgari with its paper-thin 1.8 mm Octo Finissimo, and then Richard Mille’s waifish 1.75 mm RM UP-01, both came to crash Piaget’s party.

To which Comar simply says, “I’m not looking to break records, but I am happy that this trend of ultra-thin watches, which has always been part of Piaget’s DNA, is catching on.”

With a laugh, he adds: “If you remember not too long ago – about 15 years or so – I think there was a competition to see who could make the thickest watch!”  

A NEWSLETTER FOR YOU

Friday, 2 pm

Lifestyle

Our picks of the latest dining, travel and leisure options to treat yourself.

Sign Up

On a more serious note, however, he clarifies that Piaget’s priority when it comes to watchmaking is not just about producing the thinnest timepiece or movement: “My aim is to create an elegant watch. I will never sacrifice the aesthetic or quality just to break a record.”  

Elegant is a word Comar, who joined from Italian jeweller Repossi at the height of the pandemic in June 2021, uses a lot. 

He has even used it to coin the term “extra-legan-za” – a play on “elegant” and “extravaganza” – to describe the spirit of Piaget. 

If anyone is after an embodiment of that expression, look no further than the maison’s pre-Watches and Wonders Geneva novelty which it announced ahead of the Swiss luxury watch fair next month, the Polo Calendar Perpetual Ultra-Thin (S$85,000).

The 4-mm calibre 1255P packs a punch in the complications department with day, date, month, leap year indicator and moonphase, but yet its sleek 8.65-mm profile allows it to be worn like a second skin on the wrist.

Piaget’s “extra-legan-za” is also evident in its bejewelled ladies’ timepieces such as the Limelight Gala, which at times threaten to outshine and overshadow the maison’s watchmaking roots.

Some of that can also be traced to Comar’s predecessor Chabi Nouri – the maison’s first female CEO – who boosted Piaget’s feminine image and re-focused the maison on its jewellery know-how during her seven-year tenure.

But Comar clarifies: “We’re a universe – we don’t just cater to just one gender.” 

He adds that it is the combination of Piaget’s expertise in both the watch and jewellery segments that has taken it to where it is today as one of the world’s most prominent watchmaker-jewellers, alongside the likes of Chopard, Bvlgari and Cartier (where Comar started his career in the luxury business in 1992). 

Founder Georges Edouard Piaget established the brand in 1874 as a movement maker in the small village of La Cote-aux-Fees, before the company expanded into jewellery as well after setting up the first Piaget salon in Geneva in 1959.  

“(Watch- and jewellery-making) are the two legs of the brand,” says Comar. “If you want to run, you’ll need both to be the same size – otherwise you’ll fall.”