2008-09-16

Pilara Piaget polo team: a new gem in the Triple Crown

Pilará Piaget polo team with Beatrice Vuille - Willemetz (Piaget Communication director)

Buenos Aires, September 16th 2008.

Watchmaker and Jeweller Piaget is associating with a new team that will be one of six pre-selected for the famous “Triple Crown”, the world’s most prestigious polo tournament. This new 37-goal handicap team, which will play under the name Pilara Piaget, was officially presented at the Pilara polo club, a luxurious sports and real estate complex located 50 kilometres from Buenos Aires. It will constitute a new factor and a new challenge in this ultimate international polo competition. Captained by the legendary Marcos Heguy with a 10-goal handicap, it is composed of top-flight players Sébastiàn Merlos (9 goals), Agustìn Merlos (10 goals) and Santiago Chavanne (8 goals).

Piaget, watches and jewelry manufacture, has played a pioneering role in sponsoring elite sports, including associating its name with the world of polo right from the early 1980s. Dedicated to promoting this extreme sport that reflects its own values – boldness, high demands and precision – it has been linked to the reputation of polo in Palm Beach right from the early days, supporting the World Cup and currently sponsoring the famous USPA Gold Cup to which it has lent its name. But Piaget has also enriched this demanding sport with its unique aura of glamour, its innate sense of generosity and its subtly provocative touch. In the 1980s, Chukkers for Charity, a team composed of movie and television stars, worked hard to raise funds under the Piaget colours. It was first in the world of polo and made its mark on all who witnessed its activities, including an astonishing 1985 appearance on horseback riding down New York’s Fifth Avenue. For over 10 years, Piaget has been funding a polo school in Argentina. During 2007, the latter was able to benefit from the precious support of brand ambassador Marcos Heguy.

Piaget has thus established strong historical ties with polo and the company is delighted to be associating with Pilara in supporting such a high-level team. Carrying a 37-goal handicap, the Pilara Piaget polo team is a new gem in the Triple Crown that will be played from September 23rd through December 6th in Buenos Aires. The team and brand both also intend to promote youthful talents and with this in mind have formed a second 26-goal-handicap team that will take part in the Chamber of Deputies tournament from November 11th to December 3rd.

Piaget, watches and jewelry Manufacture shares with Pilara an in-depth understanding of luxury based on differentiation, quality and authenticity. The House is looking forward to joining forces in promoting polo teams that display its own sense of excellence.

Since its founding in 1874, Piaget embodies unique expertise combined with peerless creativity. From the ultra-thin Calibre 9P created in the 1950s to the world’s thinnest tourbillon movement, Calibre 600P, the exceptional talent of the Piaget craftsmen lies in their capacity to reinvent time-honoured watchmaking techniques. A full-fledged movement manufacturer right from its origins, the brand did not merely confine itself to applying its rigorous quality criteria and its keen sense of innovation to the hidden part of timepieces. Making a clean break with the traditional codes of its profession, it decided to offer watchmaking a new way of wearing time by equipping watches with a range of precious and original cases, wristband and dials. Piaget manufacture has been cultivating this jewellery expertise for decades, thus enabling the realisation of the wildest projects and representing a true delight for the brand designers who display boundless creativity in creating watches, jewellery and items that are both at once!

The famous Watchmaker and Jeweller has been distributed since 1965 by the Herkohn company. The brand capitalises on the longstanding experience of the Kohen family, which has been nurturing the development of the Piaget brand on its territory for three generations. Herkohn SA has played a crucial role in fostering the ties between Piaget and polo in Argentina, especially through top-level sports events and the Piaget polo school. It is now naturally accompanying Piaget towards the peak of worldwide polo through the launch of one of the most exclusive teams in Argentina that is to wear the Pilara-Piaget colours.