Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept Tourbillon Marks 150th Anniversary

To mark this special anniversary, Piaget has performed an outstanding feat, a first in watchmaking history.

150 years after the Maison was first founded, 67 years after it invented its first ultra-thin calibre – the 9P – and 6 years after it revealed the thinnest watch in the world, the Altiplano Ultimate Concept, in 2018, Piaget has once again pushed the boundaries of horological ingenuity. Shaped by a quest for elegance and driven by inventiveness, this unrivalled timepiece boasts 2mm, the same thinness as its predecessor. All the while, it shelters the beating heart of a flying tourbillon. A natural next step in the Maison’s journey, this invention is both a technical and emotional milestone.

The Altiplano Ultimate Concept Tourbillon is a paradox in and of itself. And yet, its dimensions, which truly stretch the limits of watchmaking feasibility, are a visual statement that can only begin to outline 150 years of human and horological history. With a diameter of 41.5 mm, a guaranteed water resistance to a depth of 20 metres and a blue PVD-treated cobalt alloy case, the Altiplano Ultimate Concept Tourbillon appears to possess all the features of an everyday watch.

The position of the watch components was maintained. The dial displaying the hours and minutes is still slightly off-centre, as it was on its predecessor. The tourbillon is located at 10 o’clock, with a seconds indicator engraved on the tourbillon ring. The most crucial constraint of all was thinness: a prerequisite, unchangeable and fundamental.

The Altiplano Ultimate Concept Tourbillon relies on a unique skeletonised barrel, which replicates the cross-hair design of the original Altiplano. However, a tourbillon’s energy consumption is higher than that of a movement with a fixed regulator, around 25% higher than the Altiplano Ultimate Concept.

From the front, it shows remarkable depth, a potential for self-expression that the wearer never could have imagined. Day to day, it can either go unnoticed or make a statement. It showcases its profoundly elegant character with a play of colours that is intensely Piaget, pairing blue with gold. This elegance is, more than anything else, the feature that Piaget constantly strives to achieve, placing it at the very heart of its DNA. Altiplano Ultimate Concept Tourbillon is made to be worn. To be looked at. To remind its owner of the long history of the people and the Manufacture that made it. And finally, to make them wonder what challenges Piaget will set itself next.