Cartier

The house of Cartier has always been marked by its iconic designs and the mastery with which it manipulates them to create new, harmonious forms. Deftly reissuing updated versions of its historic designs, be they of the Tank Cintrée, the Asymétrique or the iconic Crash, the brand continues to remain in favour. While there was always a dedicated group of collectors for vintage Cartier, there is now a burgeoning appreciation for watches produced in other periods of the brand’s more than a century-long history as a watchmaker.

Cartier’s ability to continually create refined expressions faithful to its core designs, while capturing the mood of the zeitgeist is legendary. In its long history, its stores in London, Paris and New York have produced iconic forms that are highly sought after. However, there remains many under-studied, and consequently under-appreciated periods within the brand’s history that make it an interesting one for closer inspection.

Finding the most incredible and elusive examples from these periods is what most interests us.

While the catalogue of historical designs offers a rich opportunity for study, we are just as interested in the Collection Privée Cartier Paris. This decade-long run – marked by watches such as the Monopoussiers, the Chinoise or the Tank à Vis – represented a unique expression of longstanding Cartier forms underpinned by high-grade, manually wound calibres. Equally interesting are the often-unique creations of the brand’s special-order programme, or modern skeletonised adaptations of Cartier’s designs.