Piaget Ear

In 1874, at age 19, Georges-Édouard Piaget (1855–1931) began manufacturing handmade timepiece components and movements in a workshop on his family farm in La Côte-aux-Fées, Switzerland. The company expanded into luxury wristwatches and pocket watches under the direction of Georges-Édouard’s son, Timothée Piaget. Later, Timothée’s sons, Gérald and Valentin Piaget, would lead a team of talented craftspeople into a new era of innovation for the brand in both watches and luxury jewelry.

The Piaget family name was trademarked in 1943 and a large manufacturing facility was established in La Côte-aux-Fées. There they would perfect one of their signatures: ultra-thin movements. Valentin urged his design team to “do what has never been done before.” In 1959, the Salon Piaget was opened in Geneva, where Piaget also set up workshops for goldsmithing and gem setting, introducing the company’s inaugural jewelry creations and establishing a creative hub where artisans were encouraged to push the boundaries of their designs. In 1963, Piaget released its first collection of watches with ornamental stones set into their dials (the brand's stone-dial watches are undeniable classics of watchmaking).

These artful creations caught the eye of such storied tastemakers as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Elizabeth Taylor, Andy Warhol and Sophia Loren. In 1967, Yves Piaget collaborated with Salvador Dalí on a collection with pieces featuring the Dalí d’Or gold medals of the artist and his wife, Gala. Gala would also inspire the 1973 Limelight Gala timepiece and the subsequent collection. Luxury jewelry designed by the company’s artisans have often cleverly reflected Piaget’s watchmaking origins, like the Possession collection, whose swinging pendants and turning rings nod to the movement of its watches. The Rose and Sunlight collections of bracelets, earrings and necklaces, meanwhile, reflect natural themes with a bit of Art Deco style. Piaget’s watches, likewise, have embodied an inventive approach to design, such as the Piaget Polo watch, which was introduced in 1979, popular for its luxurious refinement and widely imitated in the 1980s.

In 2001, the Piaget Haute Horlogerie was opened outside of Geneva, a facility that advanced its work in watchmaking and jewelry. The Swiss luxury watchmaker and jeweler now operates as part of the Richemont Group.

Browse a collection of authentic Piaget rings, necklaces, watches and other jewelry on 1stDibs.

In the United States, ear piercing didn’t really become popular until the 1950s and ‘60s, but our desire for a dazzling pair of vintage earrings has deeper roots than that. In fact, wearing earrings actually goes back thousands of years, and you can find many tangible connections between now and then in how we continue to talk about these treasured accessories.

Women wore ornamental earrings — studs and hoops at the very least — in Ancient Egypt, which is home to mines that are among the earliest sources of emeralds in the world. Emerald earrings are highly prized today, and their quality lies in their rich, saturated color. The highest-quality emeralds are green or bluish-green. Earrings worn by the affluent in early Roman civilizations were set with precious stones such as diamonds and pearls, and a clean-looking pop of pearl on the front of the lobe is as timeless as ever. Hoop earrings are imbued with symbolism and cultural significance for many, and on view in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Ancient Near Eastern Art Gallery is a pair of simple gold hoops from Mesopotamia dating to between 2600 and 2500 B.C.

Today, ear piercing is very popular all over the world, and, as a result, it is difficult to overstate how much everyone pines for a good pair of earrings — modernist drop earrings, glamorous Victorian hoops, geometrically complex chandelier earrings, you name it. Sure, jewelry trends and the fashion darlings of social media come and go, but earrings have a staying power that seems impenetrable: The still-strong love affair between British royals and Cartier earrings is more than a century old, glossy 1970s hoops from legacy houses such as Bulgari and Van Cleef & Arpels remain the statement makers they’ve always been and although people have been stacking earrings for many moons, the allure of an expertly mismatched stack of charms and studs still feels fresh and new.

While there is no shortage of modern earring designs to choose from, the classics, like coral earrings, Art Deco–style earrings and diamond drop earrings are still heavy hitters. On 1stDibs, find a wide range of antique, new and vintage earrings today.