- Watch Purists refused to take Cartier seriously in the horological market.
- Cartier shifted his focus to make his movement in the 2000s.
- By 2025 Cartier is one of the hottest brands in the world.
It's funny how the pendulum swings. For decades, Watch Purists refused to take Cartier seriously. For them, it was a jeweler who wings in time. Design masters, certainly, but not a real watchmaker. While the Cartier pieces were undoubtedly elegant, they were often fed by third -party movements and aesthetics, not techniques, were built.
It did not fit well with traditionalists. These were the crowd of Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin and Audars Piguet; The one who appreciated the heritage, the in -house calibers and the mechanical complexity above all. For them, making a watch was about what was inside. Cartier, on the other hand, was an innovative aesthetics of design and watches.
Cartier was just a jeweler
Cartier's reputation a Maison de Luxe Known for fashion bells covered with diamond, he did not help either. These were beautiful objects and tremendously popular among fashion circles, but traditionalists would ever see them only as quartz movements as delicious gold bells, which in the '70s and 80s was the death corner of mechanical reliability.
This is due to the fact that quartz watches were cheap, mass -produced and associated with the so -called quartz crisis, which almost destroyed the Swiss mechanical clock industry. Cartier accepted it and sold well, doing. But for the purists, this was the holiness of the border.
The collector's culture was also extremely island at the time. This favored discrete wealth and technical mastery. It had a certain snobby. Cartier, along with his elegance of Paris, his celebrity clientele and jewelry legacy, was considered too glamorous, too commercial, league.
So though this French luxury Maison He was wildly successful and culturally influential, all of Andy Warholi to Princess Dianan, which was not taken seriously by the mechanical community. It was admired, even loved, but was rarely respected in a way as “true” production were.
Now Cartier is one of the hottest tracking brands in the world
Fast forward until 2025 and the narrative has slipped. After a series of showtopping in Watches & Wonders, from the refined tank Louis will reappear with the complex Privé Tank à Guichets, Cartier is now firmly back in the conversation. Not only as a design icon, but also as one of the most desirable names of modern clock production.
Cartier's serious shift towards high guards began in the early 2000s, when Carole Forestier Kasap was appointed leader of movement. Technical genius and prestigious winner Prix GaiaForestier-Kasapi was already known in this area for its innovative work in Ulys to Nardin and later Manufacture Horlogère de la Vallée de Jouxis (which developed movements for brands such as Audemars Pibuet and Tag Heuer). Cartier has briefly explained: increase the horological reliability of the brand from the inside.
After starting it Good bells making Distribution, Cartier began to develop the correct movements on the scale, especially with it production La Chaux-de-Fund, creating everything from skeletal caliber and turbile to innovative concepts like ID One and ID two.
Then came the restart Cartier Privé Collection in 2015, which turned out to be a turning step in Cartier's modern history. This series was quietly aimed at collectors, looking again through historical cases, such as tank Cintrée, Tonneau and Cloche and linking them to top -notch mechanical movements. They were elegant, faithful repeated publications aimed at winning over the sailors who had once triggered the brand.
By the 2020s, this slow combustion strategy began to pay off: Cartier was no longer just a jeweler of the watch division. The heads turned to a full -fledged production Historical influence, the collector's credibility and the language of design that no one could touch.
Bells and miracles in 2022, 2023 and especially 2024 and 2025 saw Cartier's performance. The re -release of the brand's most famous icons would push this historic brand to the top of all the grail list, ensuring that Cartier cement its heritage design and now, finally, as a more sweetheart. It turns out, Maison It was once written down because the style could be played over a long game.
