THE ALTIPLANO 900P BY PIAGET CROWNED WATCH OF THE YEAR 2014
THE ALTIPLANO 900P BY PIAGET CROWNED WATCH OF THE YEAR 2014
Piaget has won the Jury’s First Prize for the Altiplano 900P, the world’s thinnest mechanical watch, voted “Watch of the Year 2014” by Montres Passion magazine. A year after winning the same award for the Altiplano Date 40mm Automatic, the Maison once again asserts itself as the undisputed master in the field of ultra-thin watchmaking.
The prize awarded by Montres Passion represents a magnificent end to the 140th anniversary celebrations of a watchmaker that has consistently embodied, ever since its earliest days, the values expressed by its founder: “Always do better than necessary”.
Triumph of a style
At the Watch of the Year ceremony, Piaget was understandably proud and moved – especially in this jubilee year when it is celebrating its 140th anniversary – to see its expertise in the field of extreme slenderness once again acknowledged as a genuine signature. By thus earning one of the highest industry awards two years in a row for Altiplano watches with movements pushing the boundaries of the infinitely small, Piaget once again establishes itself as an authentic leader in the ultra-thin field that it has raised to the rank of a genuine watchmaking complication.
Ultimate record
Watch of the Year 2014, the Altiplano 900P expresses the quintessence of a watchmaking adventure that is both historical and human. It is indeed by attuning their respective fields of competence to each other that the two fully integrated Piaget Manufactures in La Côte-aux-Fées and Plan-les-Ouates were able to develop such an ambitious project as the Altiplano 900P in just three years. Neither entirely a movement nor exactly a case, it is in fact both at once thanks to a case-back also serving as a mainplate. This new way of envisaging the construction of a watch also enabled Piaget to achieve an ultimate slimness record in the field of mechanical watches, at just 3.65 mm thin.
At each stage in its development and production, the watchmakers, case constructors and designer had to work in close collaboration, since every technical choice had an aesthetic impact and vice versa.
Elegant slenderness
Alongside the technical feat, it is doubtless the elegantly contemporary design of the Altiplano 900P that won over the jury of the competition. Piaget reveals the subtle mechanism of the timepiece on a dial side picking up the line’s iconic aesthetic design codes. Purity and contrasts endow the world’s thinnest mechanical watch with a supreme aura of refinement.