I am often asked by people unfamiliar with Pittsburgh what they should do when in my hometown. Other than eating fries on a salad (yes, it’s a regional dish and yes it’s great), seeing a Pirates game, and checking out Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, the recommendations usually always turn to the Andy Warhol Museum.
Many people would be surprised to know that Warhol, an iconoclast of the 60’s New York counterculture scene, is a Pittsburgh native. The grey skies, patchwork of neighborhoods, and working-class personality of the Steel City don’t necessarily jive with the glamour of Warhol and his Factory. But, nonetheless, his native son status endears me to him.
That is why I’m quite interested in Piaget’s collaboration with The Andy Warhol Foundation, and the release of their limited-edition Collage watch. As many may know, the artist was a bit of a compulsive collector and one of his hobbies was watches. Upon his death, there were seven Piagets, four of which returned to the Swiss maison. This, in turn, sparked the beginnings for a partnership that, I believe, elevates Warhol’s legacy beyond pop art into the luxury world.
The Collage is as much a balance of Piaget’s house design as it is a celebration of Warhol’s work. The creative team behind the Swiss brand took six months to even find a starting point, traveling to New York to view the artist’s archives and trying to find a balance between iteration without being too on-the-nose.
“With such a wealth of material to draw on, it was extremely difficult to know where to begin. Should we look to one of his most famous works and iterate on a banana, a can of soup, or perhaps Marilyn Monroe? We quickly learned that we wanted to express Warhol, but without being obvious. To suggest, rather than to show. For their part, the foundation encouraged us to approach the project with freedom and to interpret Warhol in Piaget’s expressive, unbounded style,” explained artistic director Stéphanie Sivrière.
The result is a watch that tells the story of the collaboration between Piaget and the Andy Warhol Foundation as it is about simply creating a unique watch. The dial motif of the Andy Warhol Watch Collage Limited Edition comes from the application of four ornamental stones, shaped, cut, and arranged using the Métier d’Art of marquetry. The base is black onyx, the same color as Andy Warhol’s own Piaget watch from 1973. This is complemented by thin slices of 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 mature color chosen to add to the palette without distracting from the dial. The caseback, also in 18-carat yellow gold, has a vertical satin finish and features an engraved rendition of the Andy Warhol self-portrait on which the dial design is based, along with Piaget’s logo and Warhol’s signature. Inside, the watch houses Piaget’s in-house 501P1 self-winding mechanical calibre, a slim movement with a 40-hour power reserve and circular Côtes de Genève decoration.
The watch is limited to just 50 pieces and has a price tag of $78,000. More details are available via Piaget’s website.
Brett Braley-Palko
2025-10-30 14:00:00