Piaget is always famous for its long-term progress in crafting remarkably thin watches. All was well as long as they could rule in this game, sometimes by greater and sometimes rather minuscule margins. In recent years, however, we have seen that the replica Piaget lose focus not just of the elegant fake watch market in general, but also of its true self. Another sparkle of hope for the brand comes in the ultra-delicate shape of the Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept watch.
I have several questions on how does this Ultimate Concept fits into the world of Piaget? What difference will it actually make for them or the popular watch market? Will we ever see something like this in production?
Fit into Piaget it does, because it’s a thin replica watch manufactured by a brand whose modern image was largely built on thin watches. It’s also fitting as Bulgari has been taking all the limelight lately when it comes to breaking thin watch records – they have completely blindsided Piaget and took over in just several years, years that slip by really fast when it comes to products that take such a long time to develop.
No matter whether it will make a difference in the popular watch market is a hard question. It makes a difference in the sense that it gives a brief – and hence passing – proof that Piaget is alive, even if not well. Halo products can make a difference, but I think it is a rather moot exercise when the bigger selection of actually available and relatively competitively priced products is lackluster at best. Of course, the Piaget replica is still a solid brand to turn to if you want some super niche, neatly made, rare piece – but as far as major collections are concerned, there’s a lot of work to be done.
To achieve and maintain the Altiplano Ultimate Concept’s remarkable thinness, the fake Piaget had to use some clever and tricky engineering solutions. This includes a base-plate design that merges the two pieces into one, with the wheels and other components being fitted directly to the case-back. This ingenious solution is not new, actually, it made its debut in ETA’s Delirium Tremens record-thin watch in the late 1970s, and has been used by Swatch ever since, as well as some other brands and watches, including Piaget’s famed 900P caliber.
As we can see that everything was made as slim as possible: a large number of the wheels are now just 0.12mm thick, coming in at about 60% of their usual selves. The mainspring also lost its drum and cover, so one can now easily see how wound the Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept is – power reserve, by the way, is an amazing 44 hours.
With the replica, Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept having a case that is just 2mm thick, the case was to be designed as strict as it could possibly be. Using a soft metal like gold and strapping the watch onto your wrist tightly enough just once could break the watch for good. Craft it from ordinary materials and you could feasibly bend the case and do so just enough to bend the wheels while doing so, damaging them together with the movement.