hurlingham [ feature ]
perfect timing A leading sponsor of polo as early as the Eighties, Piaget is backing the sport with teams and tournaments and launching new versions of its classic Piaget Polo watch, says Herbert Spencer
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Yves Georges Piaget, chairman of one of the world’s most famous luxury watch firms, is mad about horses – has been ever since he was a boy on the family’s farm in the Alps, where there was one dray horse and lots of cows. ‘I always found the horse much more interesting than the cows,’ he muses. He went on to become a keen equestrian, showjumping ‘for fun’, and, at 67, still hacks at home in Switzerland and owns horses that compete on the international showjumping circuit with one of the national team’s leading riders in the saddle. It was Yves’ love of horses, along with an unrivalled eye for upscale marketing that, 30 years ago, inspired him to name a wristwatch the Piaget Polo and to become one of the sport’s most enthusiastic corporate sponsors. If the Eighties were when Piaget was most visible in polo sponsorship, today the brand is back in a big way, from the American East Coast – New York, the Hamptons on Long Island, Connecticut and down to high-goal in Florida – to Argentina, where it has a team competing in the ‘Triple Crown’, the world’s highest-rated polo tournament, played at up to the maximum of 40 goals. The story of Piaget started in 1874 when George-Edouard Piaget, a 19-year old farmer in the village of La-Côte-aux-Fees, high in Switzerland’s Jura mountains, turned his hand to making movements for fob watches,
and subsequently wristwatches. Successive generations of the family became famous for making ultra-thin movements. Over the years Piaget-made movements have been supplied to brands such as Audemars Piguet, Breguet, Cartier, Ebel, Longines, Omega, Rolex, and Vacheron Constantin. It was not until World War II, in 1943, that Gerald and Valentin Piaget, grandsons of the founder, registered the name Piaget as a brand in its own right. Over the succeeding seven decades Piaget has produced virtually all of its models in precious metals: gold, silver and platinum. Piaget watches are traditionally regarded as pieces of jewellery, many incorporating precious stones, as well as timepieces. However more ‘sporty’ versions, like the Piaget Polo fortyfive, are now being created in its original workshops in La-Côte-aux-Fees and its new headquarters in Geneva. Philippe Léopold-Metzger, CEO of Piaget, says 80 percent of the company’s revenue is still from watches, with 20 percent from pure jewellery. In 1988 luxury brands group Vendôme took a majority share of Piaget, before becoming sole owner in 1993. Vendôme is now part of the South African-owned Richemont group, so Piaget is in a stable of luxury brands that includes Cartier, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Vacheron Constantin, IWC, Van Cleef & Arpels and Montblanc.
30/9/09 09:23:12
