Piaget have released the Piaget Polo Minute Repeater, which does what only Piaget can, elegantly exposing the inner workings of the caliber 1290P through a partially openworked dial that puts the technical mastery and artisanal craft of its La Côte-aux-Fées Manufacture on full display.
Since Georges-Édouard Piaget founded the Maison in 1874 in the depths of the Swiss Jura mountains with the founding principle to “always do better than necessary”, Piaget has pursued ultra-thin watchmaking as both a technical discipline and an artistic calling. This quest has produced some of the thinnest movements ever made and established Piaget as one of the rare Maisons equally fluent in the languages of Haute Horlogerie and Haute Joaillerie.
The Piaget Polo Minute Repeater is the latest expression of that dual ambition.The release builds on the Maison’s modern legacy of ultra-thin chiming watches. In 2013, Piaget introduced the world’s thinnest minute repeater in the Piaget Polo Emperador case, marking a new milestone in the Maison’s long-standing mastery.The Piaget Polo Minute Repeater carries that achievement further, integrating the complication into the Piaget Polo collection—Piaget’s modern sports watch—while maintaining the wearability and elegance the line is known for.
Mastery From The Inside Out
The caliber 1290P is entirely conceived, developed, finished, and assembled at Piaget’s Manufacture in La Côte-aux-Fées, where Georges-Édouard Piaget founded the Maison in 1874. Its 430 components require many weeks of handfinishing and assembly work. The bridges are hand-beveled, the main plate features a subtle guilloché, and the minute-repeater hammers are hand-polished to a mirror finish. The heartbeat of the watch relies on a platinum micro-rotor, a choice dictated by both the laws of physics and haute horology for its superior winding efficiency, dressed in a rich blue PVD coating to match the vibrant dial.
The dial itself is a study in Piaget’s dual mastery of High Watchmaking and High Jewellery. It is executed in gold, its surface in hand guilloché—a technique as demanding as any in the Manufacture. The result is a soleillé (sunray) finish that radiates across its surface, while a delicate opaline outer track offers contrast and depth. A meticulously crafted gold fillet winds across the dial, its profile transitioning from straight to domed, revealing portions of the repeater mechanism beneath. At four o’clock, a smoked blue sapphire ring — bearing the “La Côte-aux-Fées” inscription — sits atop the inertia wheel, the dedicated regulator of the minute repeater fully visible. Over 150 hours went into the dial’s development alone, with 50 additional hours dedicated to the hand finishing of each individual piece.
The Sound Of Piaget
While the dial and movement exist in perfect visual harmony, a minute repeater is ultimately defined by one thing: its voice. The caliber 1290P delivers 64 decibels of intensity, three harmonic partials, and a damping factor of 2,600 — the result of extensive parallel research into both movement mechanics and case resonance. Hours are struck at G sharp; minutes at A sharp, both in the fifth octave. The chiming slide sits at nine o’clock and activates downward, a deliberate engineering solution born from the complete reimagining of the movement architecture.
All of this is housed in an 18-karat white gold case measuring 48mm with a case thickness of just 9.30mm, maintaining the fluid shape-in-shape design of the Piaget Polo. The Piaget Polo Minute Repeater is water resistant to 3 ATM, unusually resilient for a chiming watch that wears with the ease and confidence demanded of a sport-chic watch. It is delivered on a blue textured embossed calfskin strap with a folding clasp and an additional leather bracelet.
Only five numbered pieces of the Piaget Polo Minute Repeater will be crafted this year. Not a limited edition by design, but as a consequence of the work required for each piece. Following the perpetual calendar and flying tourbillon, it is the latest in a series of grand complications Piaget has brought to the Piaget Polo, each making its own statement about what the Maison can achieve when technical ambition meets artisanal excellence, and proof that in the hands of Piaget, a sports watch can also be a work of art.
Haute Joaillerie Meets Haute Horlogerie
Alongside the Piaget Polo Minute Repeater, Piaget is also introducing anotherHigh Jewellery version which puts on full display the Maison’s dual expertise in watchmaking and jewellery. The bezel is set with baguette-cut blue sapphires;the case with a combination of baguette-cut and brilliant-cut diamonds. The dial is fully openworked, placing all 70-plus hours of handcraft on unobstructed display. It is the rarest expression of what Piaget does best: Haute Jewellery and Haute Horlogerie, in perfect acoustic harmony.
