
Own the Night with Piaget’s Solstice Collection
- Writer Faye Remedios & Charlene Co
- Photos Courtesy of Piaget
“All our know-how is transmitted from one generation to the next.”
—Christophe Bourrier
Winter Solstice, the day of the year when darkness prevails over light, evokes a sense of mystery and inspiration, and it’s this potent energy that shapes Piaget’s Solstice high jewellery collection.

Echoing the magic of the Winter Solstice, the jewels are ephemeral works of art; and in true Maison style no detail has been left to chance. But to fully appreciate Piaget’s deeply emotive approach to jewellery-making, we must go back to where it all began.
In 1874, in the small Swiss village of La Côte-aux-Fées, 19-year-old farmer Georges-Édouard Piaget started to create high-precision movements and components for watches. Developing the craft into a family business, he later passed the company to his son who began manufacturing luxury wristwatches and pocket watches.
In 1957, the Piaget brand, by now a registered trademark, made history with its 9P calibre watch, designed to have the slimmest mechanical movement in the world. Three years later, Piaget broke another record by developing the Calibre 12P, the world’s thinnest self-winding movement. Piaget thus became the master of ultra-thin movements and remains so today.
In the 1960s, Piaget forayed into the world of jewellery, using its expertise in watchmaking to create unique watches doubling as intricately crafted jewels.

Today, the brand prides itself on making everything in-house—from sourcing and designing gems to watchmaking and crafting jewellery.
“We own 100 percent of the manufacture; we have our own gemology team and our own studio design, so we’re all integrated,” says Christophe Bourrier, Piaget’s global director of High Jewellery & Exceptional Creations.
Piaget also transforms gold into stunning creations. The brand’s expertise in the areas of engraving, polishing, and creating soft Milanese gold mesh is second to none.
“Gold craftsmanship has been one of the key elements of Piaget for a long time,” Bourrier says. “All our know-how is transmitted from one generation to the next because we want to keep this in-house. It’s our signature. We don’t want to outsource this.”

In the 1960s, the brand developed yet another level of expertise—that of setting ornamental stones alongside more precious gems, a move that reflected the energetic and colourful vibe of the era.
Piaget’s decades of experimenting with stone-setting and gemstone combinations, alongside honing its skills in goldsmithing, have enabled it to create stunning high jewellery collections like Solstice.
“We’re a kind of jeweller of time, so the Solstice collection is a nice way of making a connection between the two crafts of horology and jewellery making,” says Jean-Bernard Forot, Piaget’s director of Patrimony.

The lengths to which Piaget went to source the right gemstones for the Solstice collection must not be overlooked. Take, for instance, the dazzling 15.02-carat ancient sapphire sourced from Sri Lanka. It took over two years to find matching sapphires and 370 hours of work to complete.
Another breathtaking piece from the collection features a Piaget watch with emeralds and sapphires arranged in a feather composition (plumasserie). Created in collaboration with French Maitre d’Art artist Nelly Saunier, the piece transforms into dramatic earrings.
There are parallels between the rebirth symbolism of the Winter Solstice and Piaget’s approach to watchmaking and jewellery creation. The brand sees every collection as a new opportunity to push the boundaries of design and innovation, finding ways to think outside the box while adhering to traditional, time-tested techniques.
After all, Georges-Édouard Piaget’s motto remains true today: “Always do better than necessary.” In the almost 150 years later, Piaget has never deviated from this path.