The spirit of entrepreneurship, a taste for risk, and the determination never to rest on one’s laurels seem to be firmly rooted in Piaget’s DNA. In 1943, the manufacturers of Piaget mechanical movements made a decision that would prove to be capital for their company’s future. The Piaget brand name was officially registered and the workshop at La Côte-aux-Fées began producing watches, which it signed and sold under its own name. It was a second birth for Piaget, due principally to Gérald and Valentin Piaget, the founder’s grandsons, who worked to expand the brand geographically and make it more widely known. Orders poured in: clients were impatient to wear “their” Piaget, and Piaget’s production units worked constantly at maximum capacity. The old workshops had been modernized, but they could no longer suffice. In 1945 a new facility was built at La Côte-aux-Fées. It would become the locus of completely new developments in the field of ultra-thin mechanical movements.
The workshops at La Côte-aux-Fées, 1945
Pocket watch, 1948
Gérald Piaget introduces the world to his company's creations.
Coin-watch from the 1940s
Piaget advertisement from the 1940s