When it was relaunched with a modernized and sleeker design in 2016, the Piaget Polo adopted the design cues of luxury sports watches, slightly changing the face of the collection to become a cushion-shaped watch. However, this isn’t how the model started its life. This year, Piaget celebrates its 150th anniversary, and to whet our appetite, the brand brings back the unmistakable, opulent, equestrian chic of the original Piaget Polo. An integrated design with its trademark gadroons, it returns in late- 1970s full-gold attire. But if the inspiration is classic, this new Polo has been contemporarily reimagined, starting with its automatic ultra-thin movement. Here’s the new Piaget Polo 79.

The 1970s had witnessed the arrival of several elegant sports watches, mostly in steel, launched by some of the grandest names of Swiss watchmaking. The steel luxury sports watch with integrated bracelet revolutionized watch design and the perception collectors had of a high-end watch. Defined by Audemars Piguet and Gerald Genta with the Royal Oak in 1972, the idea was to combine the practicality and resistance of a stainless steel watch, a consistent design between the case and the bracelet, a casual attire and yet the beauty of an ultra-thin, haute horlogerie movement. This watch profoundly influenced the industry, impacting the style of other brands and creating an entirely new category. At Piaget, things went differently… A conversation between Yves Piaget and Efraim Grinberg (then the distributor of Piaget in New York) in 1979 gave birth to a watch like no other in the category, the Piaget Polo. 

The Piaget Polo was not just another integrated sports watch. Whether rectangular or round, what made the Polo stand apart was how a series of horizontal gadroons created a distinctive ribbed pattern from the bracelet to the case extending to the dial. As such, it is Piaget through and through, with that distinctive perception of luxury and flamboyance. Additionally, if the 1970s sports watches were mainly available in steel, the Polo was crafted entirely in gold, capturing the purest spirit of the jeweller-watchmaker.