Piaget Goes Ultra-Thin for New Polo Perpetual Calendar

The trend toward ultra-thin highly complicated watches has reached a fever pitch in recent years, and there’s no sign of that trend slowing anytime soon. Piaget has been at the forefront of ultra-thin watches for many decades, most recently claiming the world’s thinnest mechanical watch with their Altiplano Ultimate Concept in 2020 (which was subsequently broken by Bulgari, and then Richard Mille). This year, they’re returning to the ultra-thin game with a new Polo Perpetual Calendar that measures a mere 8.56mm in thickness. This marks the first appearance of the perpetual calendar complication within the current generation of the Polo, and it should come as no surprise that it works rather well. 

The Piaget Polo was redesigned in 2016 with a more refined presentation of their sports watch language. The round case features a slightly squared, TV shaped dial opening creating just enough tension to set it apart in a crowd. This was a notable departure from earlier Polo designs, which have never been shy about embracing their era. The newest Polo design feels timeless to my eye, but history will be the judge there. The design has shown flexibility, with the openworked Skeleton Automatic, and even on the very high end housing the brand’s ornate minute repeater in this Polo Emperador.

The Polo Perpetual Calendar is the most complex Polo to date, and effectively uses the 42mm case to showcase their take on the QP. The information is presented in a clear and easy to understand manner, with the day and date opposite one another at the 9 and 3 o’clock positions respectively, and the month with nested leap year indication taking up the 12 o’clock position. When read from left to right you can easily get the day, month, and date at a glance. Joining the full calendar is of course a moonphase aperture at 6 o’clock, which takes the form of a perfect circle with a rotating disc underneath. The style in which each component is presented is very clean and straightforward, particularly the moonphase which I’m glad resisted the more traditional shape of the double domed aperture. 

The dial itself is a lovely deep shade of teal that receives the ridged texture seen on other models, with each of the sub-dials set in their brushed sections highlighted by a polished ring. There is an additional sub-dial at 6 o’clock but it gets a raised circular section with the Perpetual Calendar marking, and the moonphase. Visually, it appears as a 3 sub-dial watch, which is a good thing, and I think it would work just as well if not better sans the label and ring at 6 o’clock. 

Inside resides Piaget’s 1255P micro-rotor automatic movement powering the full calendar complication. The movement itself is just 4mm thick, and boasts 40 hours of reserve. The movement will correctly advance the day, month, and date, even accounting for leap years, until the year 2100, which is a secular year, at which point our Gregorian calendar will be brought back into spec with the solar year, meaning a 28 day month of February, even though the year itself is divisible by 4. But that’s a problem for owners of the future.

The Polo Perpetual Calendar is available to register interest now, with shipping expected to commence later this year. With an MSRP of $58,500, it’s not an inexpensive watch, but in-house ultra-thin perpetual calendars rarely are, I suppose. Piaget.