1943 - 1955 Rise of a Brand

The spirit of entrepreneurship, a taste for risk, and the determination never to rest on one’s laurels seem to be firmly rooted in Piaget’s DNA. In 1943, the manufacturers of Piaget mechanical movements made a decision that would prove crucial for their company’s future. The Piaget brand name was officially registered and the workshop at La Côte-aux-Fées began producing watches, which it designed and sold under its own name. It was a renaissance for Piaget, due principally to Gérald and Valentin Piaget, the founder’s grandsons, who worked to expand the brand geographically and make it more widely known. Orders poured in: clients were impatient to wear “their” Piaget, and Piaget’s production units worked constantly at maximum capacity. The old workshops had been modernized, but they could no longer suffice. In 1945 a new facility was built at La Côte-aux-Fées. It would become the locus of completely new developments in the field of ultra-thin mechanical movements.