Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept Tourbillon 150th anniversary

To mark this special anniversary, Maison Piaget performed an outstanding feat, the first in the history of watchmaking. 150 years after Maison was first founded, 67 years after he invented his first ultrathin calibre – the 9P – and 6 years after he created the thinnest watch in the world at the time, the Altiplano Ultimate Concept, in 2018, Piaget pushed the boundaries of watchmaking ingenuity once again..

Pushing the boundaries of ultra-fine craftsmanship

Altoplano Ultimate Concept Tourbillon is a paradox in itself. And yet, its dimensions, which really stretch the boundaries of watchmaking feasibility, are a visual statement that can only begin to delineate 150 years of human and watchmaking history. With a diameter of 41.5mm, guaranteed water resistance to a depth of 20 meters, and a blue cobalt alloy case with PVD, the Altiplano Ultimate Concept Tourbillon seems to have all the features of an everyday watch. However, its 2 mm thickness and the circular tourbillon take it to another plane: an unusual one.

Revolution

The position of the clock components has been preserved. The watch face, which displays the hours and minutes, is still slightly off-center, as on its predecessor. The tourbillon is located at 10 o’clock with a second indicator engraved on the tourbillon ring. The most important limitation of all was the subtlety: the premise, immutable and fundamental. All its parts had to fit within 2 mm. Working with the same diameter, the same height of the case and the same thin components, the difficulty was how to insert the tourbillon when the space inside the watch was already filled.