Hands-On: Piaget Finally Embraces Ceramic With New Polo Skeleton

Piaget has been flexing this year as it celebrates its 150th anniversary — first with the solid-gold Polo 79 sport watch, which garnered a lot of attention as a reissue of a vintage classic (similar to Vacheron Constantin’s 222 a couple of years ago); and then with the release of the Altiplano Concept Tourbillon, which is the world’s thinnest tourbillon at 2mm thick. Now Piaget has released the new Polo Skeleton in ceramic, an admittedly less flashy but significant watch for the brand, representing its first foray into doing a ceramic case.

Where the first skeletonized Polo from 2021 was done in steel, this new model has a sleek, matte black ceramic case. This is one heck of a way to debut a new material to the brand’s catalog but I am certainly one to appreciate swinging for the fences. Plus, I wouldn’t be shocked to see ceramic cases pop up on the sportier—not to mention more accessible— Piaget Polo S at some point.

Such a refined and elaborate skeletonized movement is a pretty difficult feat to achieve, but there has been a revival in recent years of not just the craft but how it is approached and how it can be made a little more casual. Audemars Piguet is arguably the best at it, while Vacheron Constantin and Parmigiani have also released or updated skeletonized dial models of their own respective sport watches, all of which make for some of the finest examples out there. While the Polo Skeleton Ceramic is certainly not a sport watch like the Overseas, or even the Tonda PF, the vibe here is certainly more casual than those of the existing steel and gold models. It allegedly took Piaget three years to create this watch, because the brand had to totally rework the Polo case to make it work in ceramic. This process actually added a little thickness to the case because of the need for an inner metal case that allows the caseback to be screwed in. This is necessary due to ceramic being too hard to handle the screws — hence the use of DLC-coated titanium here.

The two-part brushed ceramic case has the aforementioned black DLC titanium mid-case which contains the movement. The 42mm wide and 7.5mm thick case is slightly heftier when compared to the 6.5mm of the steel model. Frankly, it’s hard to tell the difference in thickness when actually handling the watch because, ultimately, we are talking about two very, very slim cases. The light weight and superior resistance of ceramic makes up for some of this additional thickness as well. And while the Polo Ceramic has an average 50 meters of water resistance, the stealthy black aesthetic matched with the hit of blue from the lume on the indices and hands makes for a fairly sporty and undeniably fetching product.

The lumed areas match the movement's blued micro-rotor, which is visible through both sides of the dial. The Calibre 1200S1 remains the same, with its svelte 2.4mm thickness making it one of the slimmest automatic movements out there. The specs are also unchanged, as it ticks away at 3 Hz with a 44-hour power reserve. The skeletonization is wonderfully done, with curved bridges that reach across and around the dial and which are finished in dark grey with spiral graining and framed with polished beveling. It really is a beautifully finished dial that takes advantage of the moody and darker vibe of the black ceramic case.

The Piaget Polo Skeleton Ceramic dances a fine line — positioned as a casual yet highly sophisticated skeletonized-dial watch done in an entirely new material for the brand. For the collector who appreciates these finishes, and digs the idea of the lightweight and naturally vibrant black that comes with a ceramic case and rubber strap, the price of $42,900 likely won’t be a dealbreaker. While it carries a hefty $12,000+ premium over the steel Polo Skeleton watch, there is something to be said about ceramic that really does make it special. Justification of that kind of premium, however, depends on just how much you like it, which really is often the case with these niche pieces.