One of the absolute highlights of SIHH – and the entire world of watchmaking – in 2018, Révélation d’une Panthère by Cartier is not so much a watch as a performance. Above the hands and the dial, instead of the usual sapphire watchglass, there is a flat sapphire capsule containing 900 tiny gold beads, in…
Santos was the first pilot’s watch, possibly the first watch with a square case, the first watch with exposed screws on the bezel, and the first watch to have a leather strap.
This interview by Henry Neuteboom was originally published on the luxos.com website in 2017. Carole Forestier-Kasapi has worked on some of the brand’s revolutionary new watches such as the Panthère Joueuse, Astrotourbillon, and the Astrocalendaire. “I like challenges and we can always improve something,” says Carole, “I strongly believe that we can always push boundaries…
For Cartier, one of the themes of the year 2017 is the mystery clock, a concept that they have now transferred to watches. The Rotonde De Cartier Skeleton Mysterious Hour Watch sets the hour and minute hands floating in space; the Rotonde de Cartier Minute Repeater Mysterious Double Tourbillon instead showcases the tourbillon which rotates…
The Panthère Joueuse by Cartier is a lovely concept, superbly executed in terms of both jewellery and movement. A panther cub in diamonds, with two emerald eyes and touches of black in lacquer, rotates around the dial, the paw indicating the minutes. It is chasing after a ball, a single diamond, that marks the hours.…
One of the two new models in Cartier’s Drive collection in 2017 (with the Drive de Cartier Moon Phases), the Drive de Cartier Extra Flat lives up to its name, with case thickness less than 7 mm. In pink gold, it’s cool; in white gold, it becomes the perfect dress watch, with an uncluttered dial,…
Cartier launched its Drive collection in 2016, and two new models were added in early 2017. The Moon Phases watch has the distinctive squarish shape that hallmarks Drive de Cartier, width 41 mm, thickness 12.15 mm. The octagonal steel crown is set with a faceted synthetic spinel. The silvered flinqué dial does a lot to…
One of the features of Cartier’s high-end watches is skeletonization, with bridges in the form of giant Roman numerals. In this piece, presented as a preview of the brand’s new products to be launched at the watch fair SIHH which starts on 16 January 2017, Cartier combines its signature skeletonization with another of its specialities,…
Company profile: Cartier was founded in Paris in 1847 by Louis-François Cartier, who took over the jewellery workshop where he had trained, and specialized in jewellery and fashion accessories. Business went well, and he became the favourite jeweller amongst the French aristocracy. His son Alfred became a partner in 1872, and was running the shop…
Cartier à l’infini is one of the many Cartier products that combine jewellery and watchmaking. The white gold bracelet has a subtle curve that makes the gemsetting even more complex. The surfaces of the top and sides of the bracelet are made in black lacquer and diamonds, creating a visually appealing frame for the tiny…
Cartier are the number 3 watch brand in the world, after Rolex and Omega, and ahead of Longines and Tissot. Perhaps the secret of Cartier’s success is shown by their new watch Drive, launched in seven variations, with cases starting in steel and reaching pink gold, from time-only to flying tourbillion, and prices starting from…
The Cartier Rotonde de Cartier Earth and Moon, reference WHRO0013, is the latest version of a watch introduced in 2014, with lapis lazuli dial and a stylized globe at 12 o’clock. This year’s version features two discs of meteorite stone, one on the 24-hour subdial at the top of the watch, and one on the…
Cartier introduced their Clé de Cartier model in 2015, an interesting concept in which the crown has been completely rethought to make pulling it out easier. Instead of the difficulty of using fingernails to pull out the usual circular crown, everything is made easier with the rectangular crown of the Clé watch. You simply turn…
This is a watch that leads you away from our contemporary dimension of time, the digital indications on our televisions, computers and smartphones, and the beeps on the radio. The Rotonde de Cartier Day/Night Retrograde Moon Phases takes you back to the origins of our time, the planet earth as it spins and orbits the…
The Rotonde de Cartier Astromystérieux is a contemporary mystery watch, in which not just the hands, but the entire movement is suspended on a series of transparent sapphire discs. It’s an extraordinary concept, difficult to express using just still images. Cartier’s video gives an idea of what it’s about, in their habitually understated style: In the…
This watch, one of Cartier’s new pieces to be introduced at SIHH later this month (January 2016) shows that there is still plenty of room to invent new functions and new styles of display, as long as you have the capability of designing your own movement. This is a watch for women by Cartier, and…
Clé de Cartier was one of the brand’s most interesting innovations at the SIHH watch fair in January 2015, with a crown that is easy to pull out and operate because of its rectangular shape. While a small circular crown requires robust fingernails to pull it out, with the Clé de Cartier, you just have…
Just the fact that it’s possible to write a top ten article about Cartier’s new watches presented at SIHH is remarkable. In actual fact, if you include all the variants, dial colours and so forth, the total would come to over a hundred. Admittedly a few of them are existing models that have simply been…
Cartier presented an incredible range of new pieces at SIHH, some haute horlogerie, some haute joaillerie, and some that had some ingenious design touches creating something new and refreshing. This was the case for the Rotonde de Cartier Annual Calendar, which presents the information typical of annual calendar watches – day, date, month – in…
The Rotonde de Cartier Astrotourbillon is a watch that was presented in 2010, with the in-house Calibre 9451 MC movement in which the tourbillon has an elongated carriage that enables the balance to rotate around the dial, once a minute. The balance bridge is in the form of an arrow and so becomes a seconds…