What’s Hot At Watches & Wonders 2024: Piaget Turbocharges Its Altiplano Ultimate Concept With A Flying Tourbillon

For Watches & Wonders 2024, Piaget turbocharges its ultrathin Altiplano Ultimate Concept with a flying tourbillon and still keeps it at 2mm

It’s the 150th anniversary of the founding of Piaget, so key designs from the maison’s history form the basis of its presentation this year. Leading the pack is the Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept Tourbillon 150th anniversary edition, which comes six years after Piaget unveiled the Altiplano Ultimate Concept, then the thinnest watch in the world, measuring 2mm. The 2024 version is the same thickness but distinguished by the introduction of a flying tourbillon, which required a 90 percent redesign to accommodate the added complication. 

With a monobloc dial and a solid caseback with sapphire crystal disc, the 41.5mm watch runs on the manual-winding Calibre 970P-UC, with a one-minute peripheral tourbillon and a small seconds on the tourbillon carriage. Despite its diminutive dimensions, it boasts water resistance to 20m and 40 hours of power reserve. 

The maison returns this year with a new selection of high jewellery watches: an extravagant cuff with a black opal dial peeking out from under a gold chain cuff, two unique gem-set timepieces adorned with rubies, pink sapphires, and diamonds, and three Swinging Sautoirs (two of them being transformable), decorated with hard stones such as turquoise and accented with prominent gems such as a 29.24ct Sri Lankan yellow sapphire and an 11.68ct white opal cabochon.

And finally, the Piaget Polo Date 150th anniversary edition duo, measuring 36mm and 42mm; the former is powered by the 500P1 movement and the latter by the in-house self-winding mechanical movement 1110P. Both feature “150” in the counterweight of the second hand, are offered in steel with a rubber strap, and each is limited to 300 pieces.