Piaget goes “where magic weaves its spell”

“Piaget has expertise in both watchmaking and jewellery. While this hasn’t always been an easy choice, in particular with respect to our identity, it’s something we now fully embrace. We wanted our communication to reflect this dual aspect. We began with a campaign directed at men, which emphasised our watch calibres. Now we are revealing our campaign for women and jewellery.”
This is how, in early September, Piaget’s Chief Executive Philippe Léopold-Metzger unveiled the films and visuals of this new campaign, which is intended to create a world “at the frontiers of the imagination.” “The 2005 campaign by Pierre et Gilles was designed to shake up the brand, which it did,” Philippe Léopold-Metzger continued. “The two artists’ extravagance produced something which people either hated or adored. But we needed something new. We contacted five agencies with the brief to propose an emotional, elegant, “differentiating” campaign that would make the product desirable. Once again we went with Saatchi & Saatchi on the basis of work by the British photographer Tim Walker. More artist than photographer, he tells stories in images. We chose the striking Russian model Sasha Pivovarova, a rising star of fashion, as the face of the campaign.”

"Enormous" development

The four “tableaux” for the campaign, which were shot in an English country mansion, present the Piaget Rose, Limelight and Possession collections. Each is instilled with Tim Brand’s particular brand of magic and fantasy. Former assistant to Richard Avedon and photographer for Vogue for ten years, his work has earned him countless awards. Says Piaget: “Poetic, baroque frames compose an unexpected element within each visual to reveal a new facet of a woman’s personality: modern-day princess, playful and seductive. She carries emotion like a heroine who never relinquishes her dreams.”

Piaget’s new campaign couldn’t have come at a better time, as the company is enjoying “enormous” development, in Philippe Léopold-Metzger’s words. “We’re experiencing a great year for watches. So much so, in fact, that we are again faced with the problem of finding sufficient production capacity. The recent crisis passed us by and we are expecting good things for the coming months.” Something to which the new face of Piaget will no doubt contribute.