Piaget

MTF
[PuristS]
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PIAGET: Beneath the Surface of an Integrated Manufacture

Piaget: Beneath the Surface of an Integrated Manufacture

Regular followers of this forum will be familiar with the origins of the Piaget family and Manufacture.

Click URL that follows for the History: piaget.watchprosite.com

We have often seen old photos of the Manufacture at La Cote au Fees from 1947 but alas, the older workshops in the family farm house or the village inn and chapel (1874 - 1946) are not available.

Some people may argue that such old history is not relevant today as any investor can purchase shiny new CNC milling machines and automated robot tools that can achieve remarkable precision in forming metal parts.

I think that such modern tools are indispensible in the pursuit of excellence. After all, most of the historical giants of horology earned their place by inventing or adopting the best technology or processes of their day. The key attribute of a true manufacture that continues to innovate and excel is difficult to describe.

Georges Piaget summed it up in his famous phrase: "Faire toujours mieux qu'il n'est nécessaire ".

"Always do more than is necessary ".

On the best Piaget watches today, a similar phrase is engraved as a reminder that you hold 'the-best-of-the-best' in your hand.

Is that motto true? Or just an urban legend of modern marketing hype and spin?

After all, it is easy today to just hire any Tom, Dick or Harriet to be a marketing or PR director without the spirit of watchmaking nor of Passion, Opinion and Information.

Imagine the frisson of excitement that coursed through me when I glimpsed a little bit of the Spirit of Piaget recently.

Ostensibly, it was just a battered old cardboard box. It was not even a pretty box and had water damage.

A long-time Piaget employee whose offices are under the eaves of the old factory roof became aware of the sound of water dripping and investigated the leak by exploring the roof.  He found this box in a damp corner of an unused section of the roof space. Over the years, old stuff must have been moved around and forgotten.

Easily forgotten.  After all, the world around Piaget has been through wars in Korea and Vietnam, Cuban missile crisis, assassination of world leaders....

....Beatlemania and L.S.D..........

....The jet-set, mini-skirts, the Pill, free love....

....moon landings, quartz crisis, ABBA, oil shortage, Rocky movies, Berlin hole-in-the-wall, U.S.S.R. collapse, economic boom and busts, BRIC and hopefully, even North Korea 2013.

The Box:

1911 ? 

1910 ? 

 

The Piaget family motto is true and that goes to the heart.

The heart of the Manufacture and the heart of the Piaget community...designers, watchmakers, engineers, collectors and...heck - even the marketeers...need to care about this dirty old box.

Without heart, this industry is just consumerism and bowing to the monkey bean counters.

Without passion, this forum is just a museum to glories past.

This box means a great deal to the old employee who found it.

It is his connection to a manufacture and the village that he loves and will die to protect. His greatest joy was when the grubby box was revealed to the remaining Piaget family members who had led the Manufacture before.

As they held it, the atmosphere was palpable and as they touched the family Spirit, was it just imagination?

Or the wind whistling through the attic?

Or did their venerable ancestor whisper:-

"Faire toujours mieux qu'il n'est nécessaire"............. 

 
World's Thinnest Piaget automatic minute repeater

Posted by MTF

(Piaget Owner and Sentimentalist)

Post-script doubts:

Are these the ramblings of idealism?

Shall we just print the facts and photos from the new watches' press releases?

It’s just a smelly old cardboard box; does it matter in the real world where You live?

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