Piaget celebrates the dynamism of light in a new high jewellery collection. Extraordinary Lights tells the story of vivid lights in three chapters, tracing the events of one imagined evening, from the romantic warmth of dusk to fiery red lanterns released into the night sky and the magic of the aurora borealis, concluding with the peace of a starlit night.
‘Our designers start by having their inspiration around a theme,’ Piaget global product marketing director Cynthia Tabet explains. ‘This year, it is lights in the night, a theme then drawn around the central stones.’ The designs place exceptional stones in tantalising combinations: in the ‘Blazing Night’ necklace, the vividity of 12 pear-shaped rubies is a natural signifier of traditional red lanterns, while the ‘Magical Aurora’ cuff watch draws the brilliance of the display in a dial covered in baguette-cut Zambian emeralds. Fully articulated, its flexible form feels silky soft against the skin.
Comfort is an important aspect of design for the house, which consider wearability with each piece: ‘Our main objective when we launch the production of a high jewellery piece is to ensure our clients will be comfortable wearing them, and this drives us throughout the production process. High jewellery needs to be worn! And, indeed, one of Piaget’s signatures is fluidity,’ adds Tabet.
It is a philosophy reflected in designs that move freely with the wearer; the ‘Gloaming Illuminations’ set juxtaposes sapphires in sorbet shades against a random mix of diamond cuts, sprinkling them over the neck and dangling them from earlobes. In the ‘Extraordinary Lights’ pieces, light ‘day’ gems are framed against seductive ‘night’ stones for fluid pieces that are also transformable: the dazzling necklace can be worn in nine different ways. In the ‘Blissful Lights’ necklace, the yellow fancy coloured diamond can be unclipped and attached into a special mounting, making for the ultimate cocktail ring.
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