Some maisons add precious stones to the dial. Piaget turns the precious stone into the dial itself. At Watches and Wonders 2026, the luxury watchmaker unveiled Swinging Pebbles, a trio of pendant watches that revive the spirit of the maison’s landmark 21st Century Collection from 1969. The collection comprises three striking creations in golden tiger’s eye, grass-green verdite, and iridescent blue pietersite, each one carved from a single slice of ornamental stone. More than a simple revival of the free-spirited Swinging Sautoirs of the 1970s, these pieces feel like miniature sculptures in motion, suspended from hand-made twisted gold chains.
Each stone is hollowed out to house the 355P quartz movement, then closed again to preserve a smooth, seamless pebble-like form. Piaget has always excelled at creating watches that live equally in the worlds of jewelry, design, and horology, and here that mastery feels almost instinctive. You do not simply admire these creations for a season and move on when the next Watches and Wonders arrives. They are the kind of pieces that stay in the mind and are spoken about decades later, which is precisely why the original sautoirs even 50 years later still hold such allure.
There is also something wonderfully playful about the collection, but that playfulness rests on absolute command over materials. Piaget creative director Stéphanie Sivrière found inspiration in an early 1970s malachite kimono pocket watch from the archives, and that archival boldness runs through the new pieces. The gold and stone pairings are especially well thought of, as reported by Mojeh. The rose gold chain complements the warm striped glow of tiger’s eye, while the warmth of yellow gold heightens the rich green depth of verdite. Cool and serene white gold sharpens the iridescence of pietersite, with the latter further elevated by a diamond-set bezel. Since no two stones are ever exactly alike, every example carries its own character, making each one feel intimate, unique in its own right, and a must-have collectible.
Piaget’s presence at Watches and Wonders 2026 offers exceptional ornamental-stone in other collections from Sixtie to the Altiplano Ultimate Concept Tourbillon and a new white-gold Polo 79 with a sodalite dial, making it clear that at Piaget this year, stone was the hero!
