Hands-On: The Piaget Limelight Stella

Last week Jack wrote about the new Piaget Emperador Coussin XL 700P, Piaget’s major new release at SIHH 2016. In addition to this crazy skeletonized hybrid electromechanical watch, Piaget released some major women’s watches as well. The brand is actually better-known for its women’s watches and made a name for its high jewelry watches starting in the 1960s (see my article on Piaget cuff watches). For SIHH this year, Piaget released the Limelight Stella with moon phase, which is the most complicated in-house-designed women’s watch ever made in the brand’s history.

The Limelight Stella features a new caliber 584P that Piaget tells us is entirely designed and made completely in-house, with another caliber (580P) designed for the haute joaillerie version that does not have center seconds, in order to show off the diamond-setting. The automatic winding movement has a 42-hour power reserve, minutes, hours, center seconds, and the moon-phase indication. In general, the moon phase isn’t a terribly complex complication, but in this case Piaget’s upped the ante a bit; the moon phase in the Limelight Stella is accurate to one day every 122 years.

The watch will be available in five versions: the haute joaillerie, which is a 39 mm white-gold case with baguette-cut, diamond-set bezel and mother-of-pearl dial (with or without a diamonds-set bracelet); a 36 mm pink gold case with or without pavé-set diamonds; and a 36 mm white-gold case with diamonds. All have a round case but you will notice that there is a trompe l’oeil effect created by the diamond-setting, giving the appearance of an oval-shaped case.

The moon phase, arguably the most exciting part, is quite large for a woman’s watch (generally in women’s watches the moon-phase display is small, verging on illegible). The pie-shaped aperture takes up a little less than a quarter of the dial and features a very detailed moon disk, surrounded by stars. The aperture is further framed by diamonds at the base of the moon-phase aperture. The feuille hands are beautiful, and it is nice to see this classic shape continue to make an appearance on Piaget pieces.

I have to give Piaget credit for expanding the Limelight collection to include a more complicated watch exclusively for women. This is by no means a first for women’s watches, as plenty of other brands have started to include complications for women (Patek Philippe and Vacheron Constantin, to name just a couple). That is not to say that women can’t wear men’s watches, which is something that I do myself and have often talked about here on HODINKEE. However, I think it is important to recognize that brands are making moves towards including complicated women’s watches more now than ever before.

The prices are as follows:
Pink Gold with Diamonds: $28,600
Pink Gold: $20,500
White Gold with Diamonds: $29,700
Haute Joaillerie White Gold with Diamonds: $220,000
Haute Joaillerie White Gold with Diamonds and Bracelet: $840,000

For more on Piaget watches, visit their website.

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