- Observation purists refused to take Cartier seriously on the horrible market.
- Cartier moved his goal to make his own movements in the 2000s.
- By 2025, Cartier is one of the hottest brands in the world.
It's funny how the pendulum balances. For decades, Watch Purists refused to take Cartier seriously. For them, he was a jeweler who was in the chronometer. Masters of design, of course, but not a real watchmaker. While the coins of Cartier were undeniably elegant, they were often fueled by third -party movements and built with aesthetics, and not engineering, in mind.
This was not suitable for traditionalists. These are the Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantine and the crowd of Audemars Piguet; The genre that appreciated heritage, internal calibers and mechanical complexity above all. For them, the watchmaking concerned what had checked inside. Cartier, on the other hand, innovated the design and watchmaking aesthetics.
Cartier was just a jeweler
Cartier's reputation as Luxury house Known for its fashion watches encrusted with diamonds did not help either. They were beautiful objects and extremely popular with avant-garde circles, but traditionalists would only consider them as delicate gold watches with quartz movements, which in the 1970s and 80s were a death knell for mechanical credibility.
Indeed, the quartz watches were cheap, produced en masse and associated with the so-called “quartz crisis”, which almost destroyed the industry of the Swiss mechanical watch. Cartier kissed it and sold it well, which did it. But for purists, it was a limited sacrilege.
At the time, the culture of collectors was also extremely insular. He favored discreet wealth and technical mastery. There was a certain snobbery. Cartier, with his Parisian Flair, his celebrity clientele and his heritage first of jewelry, was considered too glamorous, too commercial, too “fashion”.
So, while this French luxury Trophy Was very successful and influential culturally, carried by everyone, from Andy Warhol to Princess Diana, he was not taken seriously by the mechanical community. He was admired, even loved, but rarely respected in the “real” way manufacturing were.
Now Cartier is one of the hottest marks in the world
Quick advance until 2025, and the story overturned. After a series of showstopping outings at Watches & Wonders, from the Louis Rééétite referral to private tank parts with high skills, Cartier is now back in the conversation. Not just like an icon of design, but as one of the most desirable names in modern watchmaking.
The serious change from Cartier to a high watchmaker began in the early 2000s when Carole Forestier-Kasapi was appointed head of movement creation. A technical and former winner of the prestigious Gaia PriceForestier-Kasapi was already known in the industry for his innovative work in Ulysse Nardin and later at the watchmaking manufacturer of the Joux valley (which developed movements for brands like Audemars Piguet and Tag Heuer). Cartier brought it with a clear memory: raising the horrible credibility of the interior brand.
After launching her Beautiful watchmaking Division, Cartier began to develop appropriate large -scale internal movements, especially at its manufacturing In the Chaux-de-Fonds, creating everything, skeletal calibers and whirlpools to innovative concepts like the ID One and ID Two.
Then came the revival of Private cartier Collection in 2015, which turned out to be a central movement in the contemporary history of Cartier. This series discreetly targeted collectors to knowledge, revisiting forms of historical cases such as the fitted tank, the barrel and the bell, and associating them with high -end mechanical movements. These were elegant and faithful reissues designed to win the very purists who had once rejected the brand.
In the 2020s, this slow combustion strategy began to bear fruit: Cartier was no longer just a jeweler with a watch division. The heads were for the part in its own right manufacturing With a historical influence, the credibility of collectors and a design language that no one could touch.
Watches and wonders in 2022, 2023 and especially 2024 and 2025 saw Cartier flying the show. The reissues of the most famous icons of the brand would propel this historic brand at the top of the Grail of all, guaranteeing that Cartier would cement its heritage as a master of design and, now, finally, a darling of purists. It turns out that the Trophy It was struck off as a style on the substance could have played long game from the start.
