How To Wear It: The Piaget Polo 79

Welcome to “How To Wear It,” where our Style Editor Malaika Crawford takes one beloved watch and shows you how to make it look its best – with styling tips and tricks, a delve into the current fashion discourse, some historical references, and a dash of British sarcasm thrown in for good measure.

Hello, and welcome back. It’s been a while. The How To Wear It hiatus was a chance to breathe, reconfigure, and reinvigorate a (what felt like) saturated mind with fresh ideas. It allowed me to reconnect with the excitement and desire I had been missing in styling and explore perspectives beyond my own—an exercise I try to practice regularly.

The convergence of fashion and watches might seem like an attempt to alienate the traditional watch enthusiast, but I assure you, it’s not. It’s simply my way of sharing, with those who are interested, the excitement I feel when these two worlds are fused together. Under the thumb of our own algorithms, it’s easy to forget that there are countless types of people, each consuming different kinds of content. The goal of How To Wear It isn’t to dictate the ‘right’ watches or fashion but rather to explore design in a broader sense—focusing on the objects we choose to wear on our physical bodies and their connection to personal expression.

Just when you thought we had put vintage reissues to rest, here I am, bringing up the watch world’s ongoing nostalgia fixation yet again. The retro impulse had been so rampant that I had to cleanse my personal palate with sober watch aspirations. I prescribed myself a diet of tool watches as a hangover remedy for the morning after the ’70s (in this case ’80s) design revival. – the pervasive trend that just will not concede defeat.

I busied myself speaking to colleagues about the ultimate ‘Normcore’ watches (Speedmaster and Explorer 1, if anyone cares to know my verdict), but, rather predictably, the yellow-gold-hungry glamour demon inside me yearned for opulence. As much as I love a 1016, stainless steel isn’t my version of a luxury fantasy. So, I returned to joy and maximalism, picking up a watch that I had let fall by the wayside during a period of aesthetic malaise.

Enter the Piaget Polo

It’s not that I ignored last year’s Piaget Polo 79 release, but rather, I let the contrarian in me take over, leading me to sit on the sidelines of Piaget Polo discourse. However, existing in a self-imposed silo made it impossible to engage with what was actually happening in the world around me. So, I gave up on horological sobriety and decided to go full yellow gold. Let us float up into the delectable clouds of big gold watches together.

Nobody did the 1980s ‘ladies who lunch’ sartorial glamour better than late New York socialites Nan Kempner, Pat Buckley, and Nancy Kissinger. Those perfectly poised ladies who lived life on the party circuit, wearing couture, smoking long cigarettes, and going to lunch at Le Cirque with their perfectly coiffed hair and broad-shouldered coats would likely not have been wearing this watch. And while the Piaget Polo does have its own very glamorous celebrity lineage, allow me to find mental solace in this fantasy origin story.

Now, if those very glamorous women had been wearing this watch, they would have obviously been wearing the original period-correct Polo quartz models. And they would have been wearing them loose. (Reminder to explore Upper East Side ladies and their obsession with wearing giant gold watches loosely on their wrists). All of this is to say that the new Polo 79 has been adapted for the modern consumer’s needs. In all honesty, I’m not entirely sure who that consumer is, but I, myself, am a sucker for a giant gold watch.

The Polo first debuted in 1979; Andy Warhol and original Bond girl Ursula Andress soon became notable fans of the style. (You can read all about the Polo’s origin story and its celebrity orbit here). The watch embodied the absurd extravagance of the decade with its bold, geometric, and yellow gold design. The Piaget Polo 79, an update to the original Polo, measures 38mm x 7.9mm—it’s a real hunk of yellow gold. The signature aesthetic of the Polo is defined by its horizontal polished gold lines (gadroons), and thankfully, Piaget has preserved these distinctive stripes across the case, bracelet, and dial. The continuity of the pattern from dial to the bracelet is something my pal, co-founder of Toledano and Chan, and audacious ’70s design lover, Phil Toledano, has branded as a “Continuous Concept.” This technique turns the overall essence of the watch into a sculptural unit, an object that is fluid yet entirely whole: it’s a pattern on a loop that doesn’t exclude the actual watch from participating in this jewelry-driven design. The case melts seamlessly into the bracelet, rendering it a harmonious unit.

The Polo 79 is hefty, crafted from nearly 200 grams of 18-karat yellow gold. The new, bulkier profile means the Polo 79 lacks the elegance of the original bracelet watch, which had a more fluid, almost liquid form. However, the craftsmanship of the new release is unmistakably of the highest order. The contrast between the brushed gold and the polished gadroons is crispy perfection. The bracelet tapers to a deployant clasp, perfectly hidden so as not to disturb the pattern of gadroons and links. It’s a gorgeous piece of jewelry.

I will not entertain any long-winded discussion about needing this watch to be smaller, those of us who consider themselves ’70s watch fanatics would obviously like it to be. Duh. My only wish would be for Piaget to release an additional smaller quartz model that doesn’t cost  $73,000. I want this watch for its looks, not its brains. Currently, the Polo 79 is powered by Piaget’s ultra-thin caliber 1200P1, an automatic micro-rotor caliber measuring 2.35mm. Bravo to Piaget for its genuine and widely-celebrated efforts in the race to ultra-thin records in mechanical watchmaking. I, however, stand behind the idea of a new battery-powered bracelet-watch and a little more nonchalance for this style of jewelry-adjacent watchmaking. You know I’d be wearing my skinny quartz Polo loose.

Look 1

We all dream of being tall, good-looking, and impeccably tailored. This is what Jil Sander has been delivering for men and women alike since the 1970s. The brand’s German minimalism flourished in the ’90s and reached new heights in the ’00s under the direction of former Creative Director and menswear pioneer Raf Simons. In recent years, the brand has experienced renewed interest thanks to husband-and-wife duo Lucie and Luke Meier, who, according to Business of Fashion, “have reinvigorated [the brand] through sharp and precise collections infused with touches of craft and femininity.”

Okay, back to the watch, a gold accessory that is so discerning, there is no use in trying to quiet it down by hiding it under another garment or trying to be too creative about how you wear it. It’s proud of what it looks like; it’s the main event. So pair it with a monochromatic look, it’s best to remain uncluttered when wearing a big gold watch. There’s nothing wrong with looking a little extravagant, but this is the type of accessory that does the heavy lifting: a single piece that does the handiwork of completely transforming a basic outfit.

There is always the danger that simplicity can become boring. Without variety or modulation, there will be boredom. But if you keep the look slick and perfectly styled, if you match colors, for example, and offset the layers of wool with a shiny watch, it no longer says, “Hey, it’s winter, and I may be sleeping through life.” It becomes self-aware. And anyway, this watch is so golden that it would reinvigorate the entirety of my wardrobe, making everything in there feel fresh during peak winter malaise

Look 2

The gods may smite me for pairing a white suit with a gold watch, but all the boys are doing it. The key is a casual approach. What function are we going to in this monochromatic moment? Because if you’re not attending a red carpet event, or a similarly glamorous black-tie party, my advice would be to do it in a Giorgio Armani ss92 ad campaign fever dream kind of way. Make sure the cut is modern and roomy. Wear a sporty layer underneath. Break up the block of white with some color. DO NOT wear a black shirt underneath your jacket, under –  heaven forbid – a 3-piece unless you are Austin Butler because then you will look like a Saturday Night Fever homage. Forgive me; I do not mean to point out the obvious, but this look is not for the faint of heart. My guess is that anybody wearing a white suit espouses such a strong view on fashion that they probably don’t need my opinion anyway.

Without diving into a gold-watch-wearing laundry list of retro Hollywood icons, let’s single out Don Johnson in Miami Vice. As much as I want to dislike this very played-out aesthetic, I simply cannot. It’s immortally etched into the annals of fashion history’s most hideous moments that we love. It’s fashion mythology—so hideous, it’s perfect. Kind of like Elvis, another beacon of white suiting. It’s so far on the spectrum of camp that it actually works.

Perhaps the consensus, since the departure of former Creative Director Alessandro Michele—the king of maximalism and the man responsible for rebooting the white suit—is that Gucci’s star has faded. But I hear on the fashion grapevine that we are doing refined maximalism (Gucci’s new MO under Sabato De Sarno) in 2025, which in its own way kind of becomes a broader conversation on taste and what it is and who has it and how to wield it. Quiet luxury is dead—or so they say—but not really, because quiet luxury has always existed; it was just never mainstream due to its inherent… quietness.

Look 3

Advertizing bare arms in the dead of winter feels like an overlooked detail on my part. Let’s just call this our indoors look.

I have mentioned Grace Wales Bonner in this column before. Widely known for her collaborations with Adidas, Wales Bonner is also often overlooked for her broader contributions to fashion. Exploring male femininity and African culture through the Diaspora, she revisits ’70s silhouettes from the perspective of Caribbean youth in London—a subculture of style I have always been obsessed with. Her clothes perfectly capture the ’70s and ’80s – Ladbroke Grove, with shrunken knits, colorful track jackets, peak lapels, and bootcut plaid trousers. If you haven’t seen Steve McQueen’s Small Axe, you absolutely MUST for reference. Wales Bonner’s clothes are emotive in every sense. As a born-and-bred Londoner, I can transport myself through her collections to a stroll down Goldborne Road, listening to Silly Games by Janet Kay. My mother, who grew up in 1970s West London, agrees that these clothes very much capture the vibe of that time.

If Wales Bonner’s heritage and point of reference intrigue you, I implore you to look through photographer Beth Lesser’s book Dancehall: The Rise of Jamaican Dancehall Culture. Here, you’ll find images that highlight the prevalent use of gold jewelry and watches for adornment, worn loose. This look serves as a pointed reminder that gold sport watches are best worn quietly. An all-yellow gold watch is best when counterbalanced with casual or minimal clothing. 

That said, it doesn’t have to mean stripping away all personality. The bright gold Polo 79 is toned down against a backdrop of subtle stripes and a palate of earthy, muted tones. But ultimately, there is no science to fashion or style. As the patron saint of glamorous ’70s fashion, Diana Vreeland once wrote for The New York Times (in what may be the best style section article I’ve ever read): “You can’t buy style — because it is personality, interest, education, and a sense of pleasure in society.”

​Hodinkee 

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