A career-defining Best Actor win for Michael B. Jordan. A record 16 nominations for Sinners. The 98th Academy Awards was a game-changing evening for the the actor. Accompanying him for the historic moment was a vintage Piaget from 1968—a horological tour de force from his personal collection. 
 
Watches have become a must-have accessory on the red carpet, but few actors choose to wear pieces from their own vault. The Piaget reference 9297, sourced from a private vintage dealer whose identity he has not disclosed. Though Jordan served briefly as a Piaget ambassador between 2016 and 2017, his recent red-carpet appearances showcase his personal affinity and a collector’s instinct for distinctive pieces both old and new. In an era when awards-season watches are often the result of quick-cycling brand placements, Jordan’s selections are refreshingly self-directed.
 
“He is a real collector,” Jordan’s stylist Jason Bolden shared with Robb Report. “We looked for the perfect watch to match the ease of the suit. Every watch you see him wearing, he owns!”
 
The reference 9297 does not have an official model name but is widely referred to by collectors as the Protocole. It was produced in several hundred examples from 1968 through the early 1990s. Over that unusually long production run, Piaget experimented with a wide range of configurations, from bold hard-stone dials to pared-back versions sometimes fitted with the maison’s signature Milanese “B18” bracelet. Collectors can find vibrant combinations such as lapis lazuli or jade dials paired with vividly colored straps—hallmarks of Piaget’s expressive late-20th-century design language.
 
Jordan’s sleek example is a more formal composition aptly anchoring his red carpet tailoring. A warm 18-karat gold case frames a glimmery pavé diamond inset dial in perfect contrast with a black alligator strap.

To understand why the reference 9297 exists at all, one must look to Piaget’s technical ambitions in the late 1950s and ’60s. In 1957, the maison introduced the Calibre 9P, then the thinnest hand-wound mechanical movement in the world. The following decade saw Piaget refine the art of ultra-thin watchmaking, creating movements slim enough to disappear into cases. The 9297 is a direct continuation of that horological journey, pairing the slender movement architecture with a coin-edge bezel and gem-set dial.

Alongside a growing lineup of vintage and modern Piaget, like the onyx and mother-of-pearl checkered Piaget Limelight worn earlier this month at the SAG Awards, he has recently been seen wearing pieces such as the reissued Vacheron Constantin 222, a Patek Philippe “Hour Glass,” and, earlier this awards season, an Audemars Piguet Bamboo—a vintage favorite distinguished by its sculptural integrated bracelet linked together like bamboo stalks.

At the Academy Awards, the reference 9297 provided the final punctuation to Jordan’s Mandarin-collared Louis Vuitton suit, its yellow-gold case echoing the unmistakable sheen of the Oscar statuette he carried home that evening.