Piaget
Piaget & Co. was founded in 1874 by Georges Piaget, a farmer from the village of La Côte-aux-Fées in the Canton of Jura in Switzerland. Georges Piaget began assembling watches to earn extra money during the meager winters when farming was impossible. Not much is known about the early years, except that the company was taken over by Georges Piagets' son.
Before the Second World War, Piaget produced warches to other companies, who engraved their own labels and names on the watches before they were sold to consumers. However, the founder''s grandsons Gerald and Valentin Piaget took over the company and made some significant changes. From this day forward, the Piaget brand would be marketed and sold by its own name only, which was registered to trademark in 1943. New collections of wristwatches were premiered with great reception in the market.
During the 1950's Piaget expanded to the US market and established a branch office in New York. During this period the company became famous for its ultra-thin wristwatches with new developed nine ligne "9P" movements. Another successful movement was the "12P", which was the world''s thinnest automatic watch movement until 1967.
During the 1960s, the company bought up several case and bracelet manufacturers which allowed for strict quality control. Over the decade Piaget''s market focus changed and the watches became pieces of fine jewelry. Bracelets, cases and dials became increasingly luxurious with more and more jewels, and at the end of the 1960's there were more jewelers than watchmakers employed by the company.
At the same time, as other watch companies such as Rolex and Omega began to focus on sport watches, Piaget continued to manufacture dress and jewelry watches.
In 2001, Piaget moved their assembly facility to Plan les Ouates near Geneva in Switzerland.
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