Watches and Wonders: Piaget’s New Sixtie Collection Revives a Retro Case Shape for the Modern Era

The debut of Piaget’s Sixtie collection today at Watches and Wonders hearkens back to the brand’s creative heyday in the 1960s when designers were challenged to live up to the Piaget family motto: “Do what has never been done before.”

Accepting the challenge, designer Jean-Claude Gueit set out to reinvent the traditional jewelry watch by redrawing the boundaries between watchmaking and the art of jewelry.
 

In 1969, a watershed year for the brand, Piaget unveiled its 21st-century collection at the Basel Fair in Switzerland. In keeping with its futuristic moniker, the collection broke free from convention with striking, contemporary jewelry watches that echoed the flamboyant, avant-garde zeitgeist of the time.
 

Timepieces became design pieces in the form of chunky open-worked gold cuffs, swinging twisted-gold chain sautoirs, vibrant natural stone dials, and unconventional case shapes, such as the trapeze, inspired by Yves Saint Laurent’s famous Trapeze dress that redefined modern women’s fashion.

Almost 60 years later, Piaget has now revived the eccentric trapeze watch at Watches and Wonders Geneva 2025, uniting heritage with a modern sensibility that gracefully balances the geometrical aspect with a delicate feminine presence.
 

“At Piaget, a timepiece is first and foremost a piece of jewelry,” said Yves Piaget, the fourth-generation family member to helm the company, which is now under the Richemont umbrella. The new Sixtie embodies that ethos for the free-spirited woman who embraces standing apart from the crowd without sacrificing timeless elegance.
 

Emerging from the Maison’s Ateliers de l’Extraordinaire, the debut Sixtie series consists of four references: two in 18-karat pink gold with (ref. G0A50304) and without (ref. G0A50302) 51 sparkling diamonds on the bezel, a stainless steel version with a diamond bezel (ref. G0A50300), and a mixed-metal iteration blending the best of both without diamonds (ref. G0A50301).
 

Measuring 29mm x 25.3mm with a thickness of 6.5mm, the newly rounded, asymmetrical Sixtie case frames a white solar satin-finished dial appointed with baton hands and pink-gold hour markers that include stylized Roman numerals at 12 and 6 o’clock.

Moreover, with finely chiseled gadroons on the bezels, the two models without diamonds offer a nod to another vintage Piaget icon, the Black Tie, acquired by pop artist and cultural avatar Andy Warhol in 1973.
 

Finally, the collection’s supple metal bracelets made with interlaced trapeze-shaped links sensuously drape around the wrist, catching the light. Inside, the 57P Manufacture Quartz movement effortlessly keeps perfect time.

Perhaps no other fashion design reflected the Swinging Sixties mindset than Yves St. Laurent’s Trapeze dress, which debuted in his first collection for Christian Dior in 1958.

Just as Dior’s New Look, with its full bell-shaped skirts and tightly cinched waistlines, messaged opulence and femininity in the immediate postwar era, Saint Laurent’s Trapeze, with a more fluid waistless silhouette that freed women’s bodies from rigid constraints, reflected the wind of change that would lay the groundwork for the women’s liberation movement that launched in the late ‘60s.
 

The Sixtie collection reflects on that era’s surge of freedom and emancipation while asserting the self-assuredness and confidence of women that define our current 21st-century moment.

Whether paired with a suit or jeans, the Sixtie is a versatile accessory that seamlessly moves from day into evening, embracing today’s flexible fashion ethos, much like the original Trapeze reflected the fashion of its day.
 

To learn more about the Sixtie collection, including pricing, check out the Piaget website.