There are jewels that adorn, and then there are jewels that declare. The Piaget Shapes of Extraleganza belong firmly in the second camp, though even that feels like an understatement. It doesn’t merely declare. It dances. It dares. It distills decades of creativity into shapes so bold, so fluid, so unmistakably joyful that the result feels more like choreography than craftsmanship.
Unveiled amid the austere beauty of Xavier Corberó’s architectural dreamscape in Barcelona, this latest high jewelry collection from the house of Piaget is a riot of form, color, and kinetic imagination. But beneath its vibrant skin lies a thoughtful homage to the brand’s heritage—a nod to the 1960s and ’70s, when Yves Piaget was not just making jewelry, but making friends with artists who redefined what beauty could be. Dalí. Warhol. Arman. These weren’t just muses; they were co-conspirators.
And here, in the Piaget Shapes of Extraleganza, their influence is alive and glittering.
A Collection that Moves and Breathes
There are 51 pieces in the collection, each one sculpted not just for beauty, but for motion. Piaget has long championed the idea that jewelry should live with its wearer—that it should flex, curve, reflect, and surprise. And so it does.
In the Wave Illusion suite, rubies and spinels ride the contours of rose gold waves, undulating like seafoam caught in a breeze. Two central stones—a 10-carat and a 2.65-carat Tanzanian spinel—anchor the suite, glowing with an intensity that feels almost alive. These are not static heirlooms. They are wearable architecture, designed to shimmer with every turn of the wrist, every sway of the collarbone.
Elsewhere, the Kaleidoscope Lights necklace captures the spirit of op art in gem form. With ornamental stones and pear-shaped diamonds arranged like a mosaic in motion, the piece plays with perception. Look once, and you see light. Look again, and you see movement. It is an optical illusion you can wear—a trick of the eye that makes you feel like you’re stepping into a dream.
The Joy of Form
Shapes are the soul of this collection—shapes that bend, loop, swirl, and stretch the imagination. Piaget dives headlong into geometry, borrowing from postmodern design and Memphis style, but softening its edges with light and emotion.
In Flowing Curves, we see halos of black opal, suspended in white gold so finely hammered it catches the light like water. These aren’t just precious stones. They’re punctuation marks in a sentence written in gold. They accentuate, they pause, they emphasize.
Then there is Curved Artistry, a suite that includes sautoirs and secret watches—the latter a Piaget specialty dating back to the maison’s earliest explorations of “jewelry that tells time.” One piece in particular, featuring an aquamarine cabochon the size of a tear of joy, hides an ultra-thin movement beneath its surface. It is both ornament and instrument—a watch that masquerades as a necklace, a secret whispered on silk.
Watches That Wear Like Jewelry
In Shapes of Extraleganza, Piaget’s two creative worlds—watchmaking and high jewelry—intertwine more tightly than ever. Several suites include cuff watches or sautoirs with in-house mechanical movements, many of them ultra-thin. Here, time is not an afterthought. It is a design element, elevated to art.
Take the Joyful Twirls cuff watch. It curves around the wrist like a ribbon mid-spin, its dial hidden beneath a gemstone curtain. Or the Arty Pop timepiece, where color and complication meet like strangers at a masquerade ball—drawn together, unsure why, but unable to part.
These are not watches for checking the hour. They are timepieces for bending it.
Color as Philosophy
If there is one emotion that binds this collection together, it is joy. Piaget calls it “extraleganza”—a word of their own making, coined to express elegance pushed past its polite boundaries. Extraleganza is elegance with laughter. It’s a gemstone that winks instead of posing. It’s rubies that swerve instead of sitting still.
This joy is most apparent in the color. Rubellites, opals, spinels, and aquamarines form a chromatic language that speaks fluently of sunlight and celebration. Piaget is unafraid of the unexpected—placing vivid pinks beside royal blues, black opals beside diamonds, and letting them sing in harmony.
In a world that often demands subtlety from luxury, Piaget chooses spectacle, but spectacle rooted in thoughtfulness. Every hue, every contrast, is deliberate. It’s not about being loud. It’s about being alive.
An Artful Legacy Reimagined
There is a certain irony in calling this collection forward-thinking. Because in many ways, it is a revival—a loving echo of Piaget’s 1969 21st Century Collection, where abstraction reigned and form triumphed over tradition. But what the Piaget Shapes of Extraleganza collection does so well is reinterpret that boldness through today’s lens: more wearable, more refined, but just as radical.
The pieces are not copies of the past. They are conversations with it.
The artists who once gathered under the roof of the Piaget Society—who painted, sculpted, and performed while wearing Piaget jewels—are conjured here in gemstone form. Dalí’s surrealism, Warhol’s pop, Sottsass’s geometry—they all echo through these curves and contrasts. It’s a wearable salon, each piece a memory retold in carats.
The Future in Full Color
As the global appetite for high jewelry grows—unshaken by the tremors in the watch market—Piaget is betting not just on craftsmanship, but on charisma. This collection, which will tour cities like Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong, and Seoul, isn’t chasing trends. It’s planting a flag: here is luxury that is unapologetically bold, rooted in art, and meant to be worn not with restraint, but with pleasure.
For Piaget, high jewelry is not just an adornment. It is an experience. A reminder that elegance need not whisper. Sometimes, it sings with color.
Featured image: Piaget
Sewelo is a world where jewelry, watches, and objects come alive in a shimmering dance of fantasy. Through a literary lens, we celebrate the beauty and elegance that make these treasures more than just possessions.
