Photo Report A Gathering Of Some Of The Best Vintage Piaget Australia Has Ever Seen

There are some collections you don't expect to see in Australia, and a line-up of exceptional vintage Piaget references – from onyx and malachite dials to hand-carved gold bracelets – is one of them. 

Despite its improbability, that was exactly the collection I had the pleasure of seeing not too long ago, at the Bakhache boutique in Melbourne’s Block Arcade. A predominantly vintage jewellery business, the eponymously named firm was founded by Antoine Bakhache, whose multi-decade career was built advising and sourcing for royal houses and the world's most discerning private collectors. While he’s a relative newcomer to the world of watches, a quick glance into their display cases will show that he and his team, sourcing the watches, already know exactly what they’re doing. 

I was shown through the collection by his daughter, Director Leila Bakhache, and General Manager Steven Milonas, who, between them, told me the story of a business that originally found success based in Malaysia and has recently expanded its footprint into Australia. Perhaps the most interesting part of the story for watch collectors, however, was how they came to deal in watches, too.

Through mutual friends, Antoine co-hosted a vintage Cartier event in Malaysia alongside the late Harry Fane, an Englishman so tied to the maison that his nickname was the “King of Cartier”. Fane's depth of knowledge and infectious passion were something of a revelation for Antoine, and it wasn't long before he began turning his own eye and formidable network toward rare and exceptional vintage timepieces. What exists today is the result of that spark, as a constantly evolving collection sourced through the kind of access most of us would dream of.

For this first capsule collection, Bakhache chose to focus on Piaget, as another brand that – like Fane’s Cartier – articulately walks the line between jeweller and watchmaker. While I’ve seen plenty of rare and unusual Piaget references over the years, what struck me most about the collection thatAntoine and his team have curated was the relative improbability of seeing it in a single place in Melbourne. After years of steel-sports-watch obsession, the market has shifted its focus toward the genuinely rare and the historically important, and this Piaget collection is something of a reflection of this turning tide.

While there were probably another dozen truly wild watches I could have photographed, the pieces that follow are the best of the best (of Piaget and beyond).

For more details, check out the collection here.