Piaget’s Emerpador Coussin “first step on the moon” Commemorates 40th Anniversary Moon Landing

Well now we get a look at another “piece unique” for Only Watch 2009, this one from Piaget, master of the ultra-thin movement.   Only Watch is an annual charity auction of unique watches created by many of the most elite watch brands in Switzerland.   If you want to get up to speed on this event, I’ve blogged about it several times already (see here and here), and also shared lots of pictures of many of the amazing “Only Watch” watches on the Perpetuelle.com forums (see here) – have a look!

Piaget’s Only Watch 09 is based on Piaget’s Emperador Coussin.  This year, Piaget’s third year participating in Only Watch, the brand wanted to create a watch that represented something special related specifically to 2009. They decided to illustrate the creative approach of the brand by linking their unique watch to the celebration of the 40th anniversary of man’s first step on the moon in 1969.

OK, yes, I know – Omega “owns” the “moon watch” theme – but this is a whole new discussion that I will leave to someone else.  I will only say this is an excellent watch from Piaget – simple and elegant in the Piaget style, but with a unique twist – and I really like it!

Take a look at Piaget’s one-of-a-kind Only Watch below – do you see its moon landing tribute?  If not, keep reading below — I’ll give you a closer look after the jump.

“We wanted to make a unique piece, which had as its movement our new caliber 860P –so reinforcing the legitimacy of the brand,” says Franck Touzeau, Watch Marketing Director at Piaget.   He continues, “The result was a very nice complication with extra large moon phases positioned at 6 o’clock in a 12mm diameter aperture. The moon is made out of a gold plate. To give it this rough appearance it was heated until boiling stage and then cooled down. This enables it to have an irregular aspect that resembles the craters of the moon. Furthermore, on the moon phase disk we have engraved our interpretation of the tread left by Neil Armstrong after the first step on the moon.”

Philippe Léopold-Metzger, Piaget International’s CEO, stated:  “We loved it as soon as we saw it.  For us elegance is of most importance, and this watch is very elegant. The problem with today’s watch business is that sometimes people want to put 25 complications in a watch and you end up with a watch that is so complicated it is basically unreadable. This watch, on the other hand, has a very pure dial and when you look at the dial it is elegant and easy to read with its large indexes and 12mm moon phase aperture – the biggest moon phase on the market.” Furthermore, this high precision caliber only counts 1 day of digression every 122 years. It can therefore be considered as an astronomical moon phase.

Following the gold tradition of Piaget, the metal of the case of the Piaget Only Watch 09 is in pink gold with moon phases in white gold – all commemorating that first step on the moon 40 years ago.  Here is a nice closeup of the dial where you can see the “first step on the moon” and below this the case back engraving.

And finally a closeup of he case back of the watch which is engraved with “Only Watch 2009” and “Unique Piece”

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