For a while now, we have been wondering what Piaget would do next to celebrate its rich watchmaking heritage—and the answer has finally arrived. Breaking its silence, today the Piaget Polo Minute Repeater is announced. Bringing high horology’s most revered acoustic complication to its flagship sports line, combining the elegance, sporty and haute horlogerie.

Our insider commentary in italics with full release information

Breaking the Silence: The Legendary Polo Meets High Horology with a Minute Repeater

The Piaget Polo Minute Repeater Ref. G0A51038 retails at EUR 330,000 /  SGD 565,000. The recommended retail price of the Ref. G0A51017 is currently not available.

Deployant’s Commentary & Analysis

This is not Piaget’s first minute repeater rodeo. The maison introduced the Polo Emperador Minute Repeater in 2013, and at that time carried the title of the world’s thinnest minute repeater. In my opinion, this novelty carries 3 of the signature pillars for Piaget, viz the sporty elegance of the Polo case, the ultra thin flag carried by the maison as core DNA, and the mastery of complications and finishing. In this release, looking at the release documentation, it looks like they have succeeded.

The watch looks very pleasing and elegant. The dial is amazingly well thought out. The guilloché creates rays which emanates from the center, but is cut off at one corner to reveal the beauty of the movement within. The aesthetic of this peek-a-boo dial is very well done. The look is immediately sensuous. Teasing, yet provocatively beautiful. Small touches like the smoked sapphire ring which forms the ring to show the repeater regulator carries the suggestions further.

Piaget claims a sound volume of 64 decibels, but offers no details on how this measured. And as no standards exist for this sound level in the industry, it is best for interested parties to listen to the actual watch itself to determine if the strikes are loud enough. But also to have a better feel on the strike tempo and the tonal structure of each blow to the hammer. Judging from the video that Piaget released, click on the next photograph to view, the strikes are clear, with distinct tones and good reverberations. And the watch in the video looks amazing.

Click on the image below for a video which shows the sound of the chimes. The video is from the Official Piaget release.

Pricing notes

For a watch of this complication, many maisons would publish the price as POA (Price on Application), but Piaget does not shy away from releasing the price. The SGD 565k seems to be in the ballpark for minute repeaters. We consider the competition. First the Gerald Genta Minute Repeater at SGD 552k. Classical aesthetics. Pricing, right on the same ball park. On the lower edge of the typical price range, we have the Hermès Arceau Lift Tourbillon Répétition Minutes at SGD 394k. Also with a semi-skeleton movement. Another example is the Chopard Full Strike, which was SGD 351k at release in 2016, currently the Chopard website lists a similar watch. The price is listed as POA, though we understand it is set at about USD 318k.

The Official Press Release

Piaget today releases the Piaget Polo Minute Repeater, which does what only Piaget can, elegantly exposing the inner workings of the caliber 1290P through a partially openworked dial that puts the technical mastery and artisanal craft of its La Côte-aux-Fées Manufacture on full display.

Since Georges-Édouard Piaget founded the Maison in 1874 in the depths of the Swiss Jura mountains with the founding principle to “always do better than necessary”, Piaget has pursued ultra-thin watchmaking as both a technical discipline and an artistic calling. This quest has produced some of the thinnest movements ever made and established Piaget as one of the rare Maisons equally fluent in the languages of Haute Horlogerie and Haute Joaillerie. The Piaget Polo Minute Repeater is the latest expression of that dual ambition.

The release builds on the Maison’s modern legacy of ultra-thin chiming watches. In 2013, Piaget introduced the world’s thinnest minute repeater in the Piaget Polo Emperador case, marking a new milestone in the Maison’s long-standing mastery. The Piaget Polo Minute Repeater carries that achievement further, integrating the complication into the Piaget Polo collection—Piaget’s modern sports watch —while maintaining the wearability and elegance the line is known for.

Mastery from the inside out

The caliber 1290P is entirely conceived, developed, finished, and assembled at Piaget’s Manufacture in La Côte-aux-Fées, where Georges-Édouard Piaget founded the Maison in 1874. Its 430 components require many weeks of hand finishing and assembly work. The bridges are hand-beveled, the mainplate features a subtle guilloché, and the minute-repeater hammers are hand-polished to a mirror finish. The heartbeat of the watch relies on a platinum micro-rotor, a choice dictated by both the laws of physics and haute horology for its superior winding efficiency, dressed in a rich blue PVD coating to match the vibrant dial. 

The dial itself is a study in Piaget’s dual mastery of High Watchmaking and High Jewellery. It is executed in gold, its surface in hand guilloché—a technique as demanding as any in the Manufacture. The result is a soleillé (sunray) finish that radiates across its surface, while a delicate opaline outer track offers contrast and depth. A meticulously crafted gold fillet winds across the dial, its profile transitioning from straight to domed, revealing portions of the repeater mechanism beneath. At four o’clock, a smoked blue sapphire ring—bearing the “La Côte-aux-Fées” inscription—sits atop the inertia wheel, the dedicated regulator of the minute repeater fully visible. Over 150 hours went into the dial’s development alone, with 50 additional hours dedicated to the hand finishing of each individual piece.

The sound of Piaget

While the dial and movement exist in perfect visual harmony, a minute repeater is ultimately defined by one thing: its voice. The caliber 1290P delivers 64 decibels of intensity, three harmonic partials, and a damping factor of 2,600—the result of extensive parallel research into both movement mechanics and case resonance. Hours are struck at G sharp; minutes at A sharp, both in the fifth octave. The chiming slide sits at nine o’clock and activates downward, a deliberate engineering solution born from the complete reimagining of the movement architecture.

All of this is housed in an 18-karat white gold case measuring 48mm with a case thickness of just 9.30mm, maintaining the fluid shape-in-shape design of the Piaget Polo. The Piaget Polo Minute Repeater is water resistant to 3 ATM, unusually resilient for a chiming watch that wears with the ease and confidence demanded of a sport-chic watch. It is delivered on a blue textured embossed calfskin strap with a folding clasp and an additional leather bracelet.

Only five numbered pieces of the Piaget Polo Minute Repeater will be crafted this year. Not a limited edition by design, but as a consequence of the work required for each piece. Following the perpetual calendar and flying tourbillon, it is the latest in a series of grand complications Piaget has brought to the Piaget Polo, each making its own statement about what the Maison can achieve when technical ambition meets artisanal excellence, and proof that in the hands of Piaget, a sports watch can also be a work of art. 

Haute Joaillerie meets Haute Horlogerie

Alongside the Piaget Polo Minute Repeater, Piaget is also introducing another High Jewellery version which puts on full display the Maison’s dual expertise in watchmaking and jewellery. The bezel is set with baguette-cut blue sapphires; the case with a combination of baguette-cut and brilliant-cut diamonds. The dial is fully openworked, placing all 70-plus hours of handcraft on unobstructed display. It is the rarest expression of what Piaget does best: Haute Jewellery and Haute Horlogerie, in perfect acoustic harmony.

Piaget Polo Minute Repeater Specifications