Piaget SA is a Swiss luxury watchmaker and jeweler, founded in 1874 by Georges Piaget in the village of La Côte-aux-Fées. Initially dedicated to crafting pocket watches and high-precision clock movements, The Piaget family started their business by making parts for watches, specializing in lever escapements. Before long, Piaget's movements are being used by Europe's most prestigious watchmakers.
In 1911, Timothée Piaget, the son of Georges Piaget, took over the family firm and decides to sign and market their line of watches, expanding the business and building a new and advanced factory. Eventually, under the founder's grandsons, Gérald and Valentin Piaget, the brand became a registered trademark in 1943.
The brand is one of the forerunners in the creation of ultra-thin movements, introducing the ultra-thin 9P caliber in 1957 and the thinnest automatic movement in the world at the time - the Calibre 12P, with a thickness of 2.3 mm. Even with the quartz crisis, Piaget's rise continued with the launch of the Calibre 7P, a quartz movement. It was also during this time that Piaget started creating their first pieces of jewelry, in addition to coin watches, ring watches, brooch watches, and cufflink watches they are producing.
By incorporating watchmaking and jewelry making, Piaget came out with a line of jewelry watches, their first watches with dial worked in precious stones: lapis-lazuli, turquoise, onyx, and tiger's eye. Their colored dials, rich designs, and quartz precision kept them at the top in the exclusive and highly competitive world of fine watches.
By 1988, Cartier acquired Piaget along with Baume & Mercier, solidifying their positions in the watchmaking industry and gaining the lion share of the world's market in the sector. The merger proved fruitful for Piaget which continues to create and introduce new lines and collections after.