Piaget Tiger Eye “Jean Été” Bracelet Watch

Piaget in the 1970s had a formula that few manufactures could touch: ultra-thin watchmaking, serious goldsmithing and an almost unreasonable appetite for hardstone. Lapis, malachite, onyx, coral and tiger eye all found their way into watches that increasingly blurred the line between horology and jewellery. This one takes that idea somewhere particularly fun.

The bracelet is the main event. Made in 18k yellow gold, it alternates between circular tiger eye rings and larger open links partially wrapped in the stone, joined together by long pointed gold connectors. There is a looseness to the construction that gives the bracelet the feel of an oversized piece of 1970s jewellery, with the 27mm watch suspended somewhere in the middle.

And the tiger eye is spectacular. Honey, tobacco, caramel and near-black bands run through the individual sections, with every link cut from a different piece of stone. Look closely and the bracelet becomes a collection of miniature variations on the same material. Better still, those exposed sections have survived remarkably well. Hardstone dials are fragile enough when protected inside a case; here, Piaget put tiger eye directly on the bracelet where decades of wrists, tables and Parisian evenings could get to it.

Perhaps wisely, Piaget knew when to stop. Rather than adding another stone to the dial, the round 18k yellow gold case is paired with a clean gold sunburst dial, two hands and little else. It gives the bracelet room to be as extravagant as it wants without turning the whole thing into costume jewellery. Inside is Piaget’s ultra-thin manual-wound calibre 9P1, helping keep the watch remarkably slim despite everything happening around it.

The back adds another layer: JEAN ÉTÉ PARIS. Jean Été was a distinguished Parisian jeweller and Piaget retailer, operating a boutique at 70 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré and known for colourful jewellery combining gold with materials such as coral, turquoise and mother-of-pearl. Period Piaget watches retailed by Jean Été are known with the jeweller’s signature alongside Piaget’s, including similarly adventurous hardstone creations.

It makes for an especially fitting pairing. Piaget supplied the mechanical pedigree and one of the great jewellery-watch vocabularies of the decade; Jean Été supplied the Paris address. The resulting watch feels made for someone whose afternoon involves Saint-Honoré, whose dinner reservation is considerably later than yours, and who somehow makes tiger eye and a silk shirt look perfectly reasonable before noon.

At 19.5cm laid flat and fitting approximately a 7.2-inch wrist, it has the proportions to be worn loosely, almost like a chain bracelet. Funky, certainly. But underneath all that 1970s swagger is very good design, and that is why it still looks chic fifty years later.