WATCHES & TIMEPIECES 49
works and iterate on a banana, a can of soup, or perhaps Marilyn Monroe? We quickly learned that we wanted to express Warhol, but without being obvious. To suggest, rather than to show. For their part, the foundation encouraged us to approach the project with freedom and to interpret Warhol in Piaget’ s expressive, unbounded style. The result is a watch that tells the story of our collaboration but that stands on its own as a piece of watchmaking art, a collectible inspired by one of history’ s most prolific collectors.”
A WORK OF ART, A LABOUR OF LOVE
Andy Warhol is quoted as saying that‘ Art is what you can get away with’, a reference to the media theorist Marshall McLuhan. Yet when Piaget came to collaborating with the Andy Warhol Foundation, no such chances were taken. Instead, the Maison’ s artistic director Stéphanie Sivrière and her team immersed themselves in Andy Warhol’ s work and in the collaboration, travelling to New York to view archives opened up by the foundation, visiting exhibitions and devouring countless books dedicated to the pop artist’ s vast catalogue.
The two parties agreed that in this first year of the partnership, the focus should fall on colour, a feature of Warhol’ s portfolio, which often drew down on the bright, eye-catching tropes of commercial artwork developed for marketing and advertising purposes.“ We spent six months researching Andy Warhol before we settled on a direction,” says Stéphanie Sivrière.“ With such a wealth of material to draw on, it was extremely difficult to know where to begin. Should we look to one of his most famous
THE COLOURFUL APPROACH
The dial motif of the Andy Warhol Watch‘ Collage’ Limited Edition comes from the careful application of four ornemental stones, shaped, cut and arranged using the ancient Métier d’ Art of marquetry. The base is in black onyx, same colour as per Andy Warhol’ s own watch of 1973. Complementing this are thin slices of ornamental stones: yellow Namibian serpentine, pink opal and green chrysoprase. These are surrounded by a stepped 45mm case crafted from 18-carat yellow gold and set on a green leather strap, a rich, mature colour chosen to add to the palette without distracting from the dial. The Andy Warhol Watch‘ Collage’ Limited Edition’ s 18-carat yellow gold case back has a vertical satinfinish. Inside the watch, Piaget has installed its in-house 501P1 self-winding mechanical calibre, a slimline power unit with a 40- hour power reserve decorated with circular Côtes de Genève stripes. This is overlaid with an engraved rendition of the Andy Warhol selfportrait on which the dial design is based, carrying Piaget’ s logo and Andy Warhol’ s signature. Truly collectible.
www. piaget. com
ISSUE 74 2026 THE ART OF LUXURY