Piaget: The Andy Warhol Watch “Collage”

After unveiling their partnership last November and giving the name back to this iconic watch, Piaget and the Foundation Andy Warhol unveil a limited edition of 50 pieces, inspired by the “Collage” artwork of the artist. 

Through more than 150 years, Piaget has introduced numerous watch and jewellery collections inspired by the creative arts. As a result, its designs have consistently attracted a discerning clientele from the art world, marrying the delicate and often intangible beauty of the artistic crafts with the brilliance of precision watchmaking. One such client was the visual artist Andy Warhol, a leading light of the hugely influential Pop Art movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Warhol, an avid collector of both trivial and exquisite objects, purchased seven Piaget watches in his lifetime, none more recognizable than the iconic cushion-shaped piece he acquired in 1973, previously named the 15102 watch. 

In 2024, Piaget entered into a relationship with the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and formally named the contemporary expression of his watch the Andy Warhol Watch. Today, the Maison and the US-based foundation intensify their relationship with a capsule watch that transmits Andy Warhol’s singular creativity into the future – and onto the wrist. 

As with many things, Andy Warhol was compulsively buying watches. By the time of his death in 1987, he had amassed a collection of more than 300 watches, including seven by Piaget. These were auctioned by Sotheby’s in New York a year later, and of those, four were purchased by Piaget and returned to its private collection in Switzerland. Among them was a black and gold example of the iconic reference 15102, a 45mm watch imagined by Piaget’s creative director Jean-Claude Gueit and produced in limited series between 1972 and 1977. That design, later known as the Black Tie, was reimagined for Piaget’s 140th anniversary in 2014. Parallels were drawn between the watch and Andy Warhol at the time, but it was only in the autumn of 2024 that the association was officially recognized when the Swiss Maison and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts entered into partnership for the first time. 

Now, a year on, a watch that captures and interprets Warhol’s work. The Andy Warhol Watch ‘Collage’ Limited Edition features a dial decorated with a marqueterie of colourful ornamental gemstones arranged into an abstract form that echoes one of Warhol’s most celebrated polaroid collage self-portraits, taken in 1986. The watch’s stepped 45mm case is cast in 18-carat yellow gold, a metal chosen in homage to Warhol’s 1973 own watch, and that is otherwise unavailable in the contemporary Andy Warhol Watch collection. Only 50 examples will be made. 

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 satin-finish. 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 self-portrait on which the dial design is based, carrying Piaget’s logo and Andy Warhol’s signature.