Piaget is going back to its roots with the launch of the Polo 79. While the words ‘Piaget Polo’ are likely to conjure up visions of the manufacture’s flagship sports watch offering, the latest release harkens back to the original Polo released in 1979.
The original Piaget Polo came at the end of the decade that saw the release of the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak, Patek Philippe Nautilus, and Vacheron Constantin 222. As a manufacture inextricably associated with dress watches and daintier styles, Piaget had the singular challenge of creating a sports watch that was still in line with its distinct aesthetic.




“We really had to answer to this particular demand of our customers who are used to getting just dress watches.” explained Yves Piaget at the time. ‘But now our customers like to do more and more sports. That’s part of the evolution of our lives today. They want to be exquisite, even in sport.”
And exquisite it was, with the Piaget Polo seemingly sculpted from a single block of gold, making for a marked deviation from the stainless steel timepieces of its contemporaries. The name nods to Yves Piaget’s love of equestrianism and became a symbol of the high life, with the timepiece defined by its ergonomic ‘second skin’ bracelet, alternating polished gadroons and brushed surfaces which extend uninterrupted from the dial to the bracelet, ultra-thin quartz movement (it was the ‘70s, remember!), and of course, its solid gold construction.




Released to celebrate the maison’s 150th anniversary, the Piaget Polo 79 remains faithful to the original, albeit tweaked to suit contemporary tastes. Like the original, it’s shock resistant and water resistant to 50 metres. However, the quartz movement has been swapped for the ultra-thin 1200P1, a self-winding movement with a solid, gold micro-rotor. In keeping with the desired proportions of today’s collectors, the Piaget Polo 79 is sized up to 38mm, four millimetres larger than its predecessor. Where the former was crafted from lemon-yellow 2N gold, the latest iteration utilises 3N gold, which imbues it with a richer tone closer to that of rose gold.
Its larger case size and automatic movement mean it’s substantially heftier than the original, with the feeling akin to wearing a solid gold bar on the wrist (it clocks in at a not-insignificant 200 grams). That said, its meticulously finished dial, tapered brushed gold bracelet (fitted with a concealed deployant clasp), and seamless continuity between the dial and bracelet make for a timepiece that blurs the lines between jewellery and watch while evoking the unbridled glamour and opulence of the 1980s.
The release of the Piaget Polo 79 is a welcome callback to the manufacture’s artistic era-defining pieces of the mid- to late-1900s. Today, the Piaget Polo 79 is peerless in the market; not merely another elegant sports watch, but a sporty elegant watch.
The Piaget Polo 79 is a limited-production (but not limited-edition) timepiece and is priced at $120,000AUD.
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Words by Theo Rosen