Special-Edition Watches To Be Released This December#
Only eight of these Piaget Altiplano Double Jeu watches will be available worldwide, priced at 2.4 million yuan
China's luxury watch market is booming, and in the hopes of adorning the wrists of the country's watch-mad shoppers, Swiss watchmakers are creating an ever-increasing number of special limited-edition collections aimed at Chinese buyers. Following the lead of Jaeger-LeCoultre, Tissot, Titoni and others, later this year Piaget is set to release a set of watches that incorporate traditional Chinese symbols and design elements. The upcoming Piaget Altiplano Dragon and Phoenix wristwatch series, which the company will officially unveil this December, features the dragon and phoenix -- two figures central to Chinese culture and mythology -- along with traditional touches like cloisonné and enameling. With virtually every major watchmaker incorporating some kind of Chinese element into their new designs this year to cater to one of the world's most important watch markets, Piaget's Dragon & Phoenix series may be the most overt gesture yet.
Along with the dragon and phoenix engravings, cloisonné and enamel features, Piaget's new series shows that the watchmaker understands the segment of Chinese buyers who want their timepiece crammed with as much flash as possible. One of Piaget's Dragon & Phoenix pieces sports an 18 carat white gold dial and a whopping 78 brilliant-cut diamonds. Making their initial debut earlier this year at Geneva SIHH, the Dragon & Phoenix series will, according to Piaget, be released not only in China but in Europe and North America as well. (Although we'd have to assume most of the buyers in those markets will be Chinese tourist-shoppers.)
Slated for release this December, expect several of these watches to be purchased as gifts to be given in time for 2012, the Year of the Dragon.
"Dragon & Phoenix" Piaget Altiplano 38mm (US$76,960)
Piaget Altiplano "Dragon & Phoenix" series
Eight of these Piaget Emperador XL watches will be available, priced at 1.8 million yuan
Phoenix version Piaget Limelight Twice (US$90,196)