Piaget Technique & Aesthetic: Gem-setting

MTF's 'Piaget Technique & Aesthetic: Part 3 – Gem-setting' delves into the intricate artistry behind Piaget's renowned haute joaillerie timepieces. This article, featuring an embedded video, explores the brand's 130-year legacy of precision watchmaking and its mastery of gem-setting techniques, offering a rare glimpse into the 'Art of Capturing Light' that defines Piaget's unique aesthetic.

Piaget Technique & Aesthetic: Part 3 – Gem-setting

Piaget recently released their watchmaking craftsmanship 'know-how' videos that premiered on PuristSPro. Please refer to articles from the Piaget Techniques & Aesthetic series listed at the bottom of this page.  

Gem-setting: Art of Capturing Light

Piaget has been one of the most important Swiss makers of movements and components for more than 130 years. Their "silent" clients included nearly all of the famous names in Swiss horology. Georges Édouard Piaget founded the movement workshop on his family farm, at the age of 19 years, and devoted himself to perfecting the lever escapement to new levels of thinness. His credo was "Always do better than necessary" and Piaget has been doing that since 1874. Piaget is the master of Ultra-thin that became the Jeweller of Watchmakers.

In this 3^rd instalment of the series, we will explore Piaget Technique & Aesthetic: Gem-setting in the pursuit of Creative, Contemporary and Classic watch making.

History

After 66 years of quietly supplying movements or making OEM watches for other brands, the first branded Piaget watch was launched in 1940. Nearly 2 decades later, in 1959, the upstarts from the tiny village of La Cote au Fees dared to open a Piaget Boutique on the main street of Geneva at 40 rue du Rhône. The opening of the Piaget boutique necessitated stocking it with precious accessories to complement their Piaget watches. These were sourced from fine jewellers in France, Germany and Italy.

The jewellery clientele stemmed from a watch-making revolution in 1956, when the famous 9P world’s thinnest movement was launched. In those days, ladies’ watches were tiny but thick because of thick mechanical movements. Quartz movements were still imaginations. At a single master stroke, the 9P allowed the dial size to be increased for legibility and still the watch was thin and light enough for extra embellishments. Ladies of ‘a certain age’applauded the larger dials so they did not have to discretely reach for their reading glasses! The larger dials and bezels offered a canvas for aesthetic decorations that had been reserved for bracelets.

Piaget in Precious Metal

In 1950, Piaget set itself a ‘rule’ to only make gold or platinum watches. Recently, with the advent of other precious metal advances (palladium, rhodium etc), they changed the rule to “propositions in precious metals”.

Knowledge and Networking

The 4^th generation Piaget and family scion – Yves G. Piaget – already a qualified horological engineer, was sent to Los Angeles for further studies in gemmology. In 1966, the 24-year old returning hero found himself a lowly boutique salesman but eventually worked his way up to marketing and PR manager. His love of horses and Polo provided the insights into the jet-set and their aesthetics. The architects of the master plan were his father Gerald and uncle Valentin who had already used the bold statement on their 1959 catalogues: “Master Watchmaker and Jewellers”.

Piaget Design Aesthetic

Piaget still did not manufacture their jewellery but the design and personalization became exclusive to the brand from the mid-1960s. They had the gem-cutters and gem-setters who made the gem-set cases, dials and bracelets for the watches but did not bring jewellery manufacture in-house until the 1980s.

Piaget Coins and Dali Money

With their ultra-thin movements, Piaget watchmakers could show their skill in creating watches inside gold coins that looked unchanged from the outside. This attracted the attention of customers who liked the idea of a secret watch. 

It also piqued the interest of the eccentric Salvador Dali who, in 1964, partnered Piaget to create his own currency – Dali d’Or – in four denominations: 1, 2 and 5 Dali as well as the self-mocking ½ Dali. They were coins minted in 24-K gold as limited editions. Various accessories were produced as a cohesive Dali d’Or Collection. Since then, many famous artistes have collaborated with Piaget on ‘creations’. 

Gem-setting Piaget watches

Channel Setting

Piaget watch production is now almost equally divided between Gents’ and Ladies’ models and they are offered in plain or gem-set variants.

Although the integrated Manufacture has brought all the decorative arts under one roof in Geneva, there are gem-setters dedicated to either watches or jewellery.

Grain-Setting Step-by-Step

PuristSPro posed some questions to the experts:

1) Can you describe in simple lay-person language what types of gem-setting are grain, prong and claw?

Prong and claw are the same kind of setting. In addition to grain and claw setting, there are also closed-setting, channel setting, and invisible setting. 

Grain, Claw and Channel Settings

Closed and Invisible Settings

2) How do those settings compare with the 'snow' or 'paved' settings used by other brands?

When a component is paved, grain-setting is commonly used. We also produce pave watches at Piaget but ‘paved’ is not a technique; it is an appearance.

Snow-setting is a sort of grain-setting used for a component pavement. For snow-setting we use many different sizes of stones and we place them with the least gap possible between stones. The result is very refined and feminine with a component that seems to be randomly paved.

Example of snow-paved dial at Piaget:

G0A38211

3) For diamonds used on watches, since it not jewellery, what is the minimum specification used at Piaget for colour and clarity?

The Piaget minimum specification is the same for our watches as for our jewellery. It is very strict and we only use the best stones. Piaget uses D – G (rare white) colour and IF (internally flawless) to VVS (very very small inclusions) clarity diamonds. 

4) Do you only use round brilliant, baguette, emerald and princess cuts for watches?

Piaget uses all the possible cuts although heart-cut is uncommon on watches. Marquise and pear-cut remain very used at Piaget, over-all on ladies’ high jewellery watches. 

Latest novelty with marquise-cut diamonds:

G0A38195

Latest novelty with pear-shaped sapphires:

G0A37183

5) How many parts of a watch can Piaget gem-set: case, dial, bracelet, buckle, crown, movement bridges, skeleton movement?

Almost all components can be set, it depends on their dimension (especially critical is thickness). At Piaget we truly challenge to treat every component in detail. In addition to case (bezel, profiles, case-back), dial, bracelet, buckle, crown, movement (plates – even functional parts and oscillating weight), we already gem-set screws on a high jewellery bracelet (Dancer Exceptional Piece – G0A36051).

6) What are the practical differences of setting and gem cuts used in these different areas for the gem-setter and for the customer?

For cases, dials, and bracelets, we can use grain, claw, closed, channel or invisible setting techniques. On a movement, we only use grain-setting as an ultimate decoration. We have thickness constraints on movements that would preclude the use of claw or closed settings because of the implied size of stones. The setting commitment finally depends on the design and the technical constraints of the related component.

7) Are there any restrictions to the size and shape and species of gems that the customer can specify for all these components?

For very exclusive special orders, our customer can customize a specific any component and setting, depending on the implications this would have on the whole watch construction.

8) Do you compromise sparkle by specifying shallower cut stones to allow for height restrictions in certain areas?

No; we only set with gems answering Piaget policy of the highest standards. We prefer to develop our components in order to match these constraints. We sometimes use rose-cut stones in order to serve the design of the piece as it has a specific vintage look.

9) For gem set movements, how do you keep the gems clean in an oily and particle-rich environment?

Our movements are cleaned before assembling and then kept in a pure environment inside the case. We do not have this kind of problem; neither on non-set movements nor on set ones.

10) At servicing of the watch, do the gems get serviced too?

Gems do not need to be cleaned, diamonds are naturally clean. Gold is cleaned, re-polished or refreshed and this truly enhances the stones brightness again. When servicing we check that every stone is in place and properly held. 

11) Outside the movement, we expect the gems to be cleaned and checked for tightness but how do you service a gem-set movement without breaking stones?

Servicing a diamond-set movement implies the same constraints as for any movement or regular diamond-set watch component; nothing is supposed to be broken during the service.

12) Has Piaget ever produced movements with diamonds as the friction bearings instead of 'rubies'?

No; because diamonds are too hard and not efficient at lowering friction.

13) Gem-setting of case, bracelet and movement can be understood because the metal is thick but dials are thin components. How are dials gem-set? 

A dial for paved diamond-setting must be at least 0.8mm thick (instead of 0.4mm for a regular dial). At Piaget, we strictly stick to this minimum for our diamond-set dials and this way we can still answer our ultra-thin challenges.

14) Does Piaget make all the cases, bracelets, movements and dials a little bit thinner so that the finished gem-set components are the same thickness as the regular metal components in a regular watch?

No; diamond-setting requires thicker components to receive the stones. We develop our diamond-set components according to minimum solidity constraints.

15) What is the number of gems per square cm? 

On average we have 90 stones per square cm with some leeway depending on the design constraints. This is a very high standard that gives true added value to our watches that are far brighter that most of the pieces of the competition. 

16) For the gem-setters, which is the most challenging and satisfying component or watch model to work on? That only the best-of-the-best craftsman can do; like we reserve the minute repeater adjustment for the best watchmakers? 

Baguette-cut setting is more challenging that brilliant-cut setting, in general. The most challenging components to set are probably the functional parts of a movement.

On that note, we can ponder upon the skill that Piaget gem-setters have mastered, to work on movements. First, they succeeded on skeletonised main plates of shaped tourbillion movements.

For 2013, they achieved the amazing paved setting on a 1200D movement in the Piaget Automatic Altiplano Gem-Set Skeleton.

1200D is the first ever, and thinnest (3 mm), automatic gem-set skeleton movement in the thinnest watch case (6.1 mm) in this class. Both the movement and watch case are gem-set. Even after being adorned with 259 brilliant-cut diamonds (approx. 0.8 ct) and 11 black sapphire cabochons (approx. 0.2 ct) set within a diameter of 31.9 mm, the movement is still 3 mm thin. This exceptional gem-setting requires four days of work for each movement. 

Paving the entire main plate also requires paving the functional parts – the enormity of this feat is unrecognised by non-jewellers. Piaget master-jewellers even concealed screw threads beneath black sapphire cabochons. 

Currently, Piaget are the first and only Manufacture able to do full pave setting of skeletonised movement functional parts.  

At just 6.10 mm thick, the case also sets an ultra-thin record for this watch class – adorned with 40 baguette diamonds (approx. 3.2 ct) on the bezel. The middle, crown, lugs and even the sapphire crystal case back, are set with 347 brilliant-cut diamonds (approx. 1.4 ct), while the strap buckle sparkles with 24 brilliant-cut diamonds (approx. 0.06 ct).

24 April 2013