News
Piaget Presents the Altiplano Ultimate Concept (AUC) Unique Piece
News
Piaget Presents the Altiplano Ultimate Concept (AUC) Unique Piece
Piaget largely owns the extreme engineering space of ultra-thin watchmaking, periodically launching scintillatingly thin timepieces for the record books while wowing collectors and staking its place among watchmaking’s technical greats. The maison likely came to make this space its own because its founder Georges-Édouard Piaget was already supplying ultra-thin watch components to the top watchmaking companies from as early as 1874. In contemporary times, Piaget successfully created the caliber 9P as far back as 1957, the world’s thinnest mechanical movement, at just 2mm thick.
The AUC follows from a series of record-breaking ultra-thin movements from Piaget, the likes of the 12P (1960), 1200P and the 1208P (2010), and 900P (2014). As a dream project realized in the metal, it represents the culmination of Piaget’s engineering, watchmaking and design expertise, its pinnacle achievement at this point in time.
The AUC Unique Piece that Piaget is presenting at this year’s edition of Watches & Wonders is a celebration of this process or, as Piaget calls it, “adventure”. Firstly, the Piaget name at 12 o’clock is rendered in the historic sans serif typeface of the brand name on its manufacture in La Côte-aux-Fées, the village where Piaget started and remains today. On the time subdial, two dots on the hour/minute track are outlined at 7:47 to mark the time that the AUC first came to being; at the 2:30 position on the dial, an inscription dates the AUC’s birth as February 7, 2017. The location? “La Côte-aux-Fées” inscribed on the ratchet wheel, along with the manufacture’s GPS coordinates. As a further touch, the Super-LumiNova-filled dots on the dial are not random at all, but depict the night sky above La Côte-aux-Fées at the exact date and time of the AUC’s birth.
Tech Specs
Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept (AUC) Unique Piece
Functions: Hours and minutes
Case: 41mm diameter, 2mm case height, cobalt alloy
Strap: Dark blue alligator