Piaget Altiplano 38mm Hand-Wound Blue and Pink Gold

Piaget expands its elegant Altiplano collection with two watches in pink gold with vibrant blue dials, with or without diamonds on the bezel. As one of the most persuasive proposals of a dress watch for both men and women, the Altiplano has a perfect diameter of 38mm and an ultra-slim silhouette of just 6mm. And these new versions add the extra warmth that was missing on the white dial model we already reviewed. Let’s look at these new Piaget Altiplano 38mm Hand-Wound Blue and Pink Gold.

Master of Ultra-Thin

Piaget is renowned as a manufacture of ultra-thin calibres. In 1957 Piaget blazed a trail in the field of ultra-thin movements with its calibre 9P, a hand-wound movement with an anorexic profile of just 2mm. Three years later, Piaget produced its calibre 12P, this time an automatic movement with a thickness of just 2.3mm.  Needless to say, this was well before the advent of CNC machines. Although there are other contenders in the ongoing battle of ultra-thin movements, Piaget was the precursor and enjoys a sixty-year history of slender movements. In 2013, Piaget introduced its calibre 430P, the thinnest automatic movement in its day, and in 2018 the record-breaking Altiplano Ultimate Concept with a staggeringly thin movement /case with a height of just 2mm – which incidentally is now being produced in bespoke editions for a very limited number of clients.

Ideal Proportions

The 2020 novelties come in 18k rose gold cases with a 38mm diameter and a lean 6mm height, ideal proportions for a dress watch. A simple round case with straight lugs and polished surfaces, there are no superfluous elements to distract from the purity of the design. Available with 78 brilliant-cut diamonds set in the bezel or with a plain gold polished bezel, the watch works well with men and women alike. The watch is also exceptionally light on the wrist: the metal content of the model with diamonds weighs in at 35.9 grams while the non-diamond model weighs 35.1 g.

Essential Information

Forget about a small seconds counters, date windows and even minute tracks. The Piaget Altiplano is a lesson in minimalism conveying the essence of time: hours and minutes, full stop. Compared to the sobriety of the white dial Altiplano model, the blue lacquer dial with its sunray pattern emanating from the centre enlivens the watch and looks lovely with the warm pink gold case. Another difference is the substitution of the painted baton indices for applied gold to match the metal of the case. Again, nothing superfluous distracts from the elegant simplicity of the dial and the only inscriptions are Piaget and Swiss Made.

Lean machine

When Piaget introduced the Altiplano 900P in 2013 powered by manual-winding calibre 430P, it set the world record as the thinnest wristwatch at the time. As a descendant of the legendary calibre 9P, the 430P is extremely thin and has a thickness of just 2.1mm. Although the caseback is sealed – to avoid any additional millimetres sneaking in with a sapphire crystal caseback – the movement is decorated with circular Côtes de Genève on the bridges and balance cock, bevelled edges on all bridges, heat-blued screws and circular graining on the mainplate. Running at a frequency of 21,600vph, the movement offers a power reserve of approximately 43 hours.

Availability and price

The Piaget Altiplano in pink gold with a blue dial comes with a matching blue alligator strap and a pink gold pin buckle.  Both are limited to 300 pieces. The price of the plain rose gold Altiplano is EUR 18,600 and the diamond-set model EUR 27,000. More information at piaget.com.