Yves Piaget, fourth-generation member of the Piaget family, joined the company in the 1960s and cultivated the brand into a visible and global luxury player. Pushing the brand’s historical ultra-thin mechanical calibres 9P and 12P, and its ultra-slim quartz 7P movement into jewellery terrain, a new generation of fashionable jewellery watches with bright-coloured hardstone dials found an audience among high-society figures of the day. As part of Piaget’s 150th-anniversary celebrations in 2024, the brand produced a solid yellow gold re-edition of the famous Polo 79, powered by an ultra-slim mechanical movement. For Watches & Wonders 2026, Piaget proposes a new take on the Polo 79 in white gold, featuring an eye-catching blue sodalite dial.
Although a quartz movement might strike contemporary audiences as an unusual feature for an integrated sports watch in 1979, it represented the peak of technology at the time. Unlike most sports watches of the era, the original Polo watch was crafted in solid gold. Fitted with a sleek, fully integrated bracelet, the Polo’s distinctive feature was the gadroons displayed across the case, dial, and bracelet. Described as “a bracelet featuring a watch, not a watch featuring a bracelet”, the Polo was positioned as a jewellery piece rather than a conventional timepiece and was the first Piaget timepiece to carry a name. A conspicuous status symbol of the jet-set, the Polo faded as tastes changed and was discontinued in the late 1980s.
Rekindled in 2024, the yellow gold Polo 79 led to a white gold edition and subsequent two-tone editions. Released in 38mm x 7.45mm cases, the new-generation Polo 79 models are powered by Piaget’s ultra-thin calibre 1200P1, heir to the brand’s famous 12P with a height of just 2.35mm. The elegant, fluid lines of the watch, with horizontally brushed links and brightly polished gadroons, are back today, interpreted in white gold with an attractive blue sodalite mineral dial.
A throwback to Yves Piaget’s chic 1960s and 1970s jewellery watches with hardstone dials, the sodalite dial, a royal blue mineral mottled with white calcite veins, looks very good in this context. Respectful of the Polo’s design codes, the blue sodalite does not replace the iconic gadroons but is inserted between the four polished white gold bars traversing the dial. Unlike the earlier editions, the blue sodalite dial does not feature the dots on the minute track.
Revealed through the sapphire crystal on the caseback, automatic calibre 1200P is wound by an off-centred micro-rotor, beats at 21,600vph, has a 44-hour power reserve and is decorated with circular Geneva stripes, bevelled bridges, blued screws and perlage.
The Piaget Polo 79 White Gold and Sodalite G0A5115 joins the regular collection. Price is CHF 84,500. More information at piaget.com.
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