SPECIAL ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT TO THE NEW YORK TIMES
35 — WATCH YOUR TIME USA — FOCUS
Reshaping history Beauty is hardwired into a history that Cartier has been revisiting these past three years, resulting in collections which emphasise elegant forms that capture the jeweller’s perpetual genius for design.
ARNAUD CARRE Z, CARTIER MARKE TING AND COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR
We’ve all heard of Generation Y. The ones who grew up with the millennium. They are the new face of consumption. For them, ownership is no longer a goal. Being is more important than having. Experiences and sustainable values matter more than possessions. They are also the digital natives, hence this shift in paradigm brings with it an almost visceral need to know what’s being said online… regardless of the question! Like any other segment, watch brands are affected by these disruptive consumption habits. “Now that social media take up so much of our lives, it’s become second nature for customers to compare before they buy,” says Cartier’s Chief Executive, Cyrille Vigneron. “And by that I mean everything: products, prices, perceived quality, other people’s opinion… Our role is to propose collections that make sense historically, technically and, something that is very important to Cartier, aesthetically. At the right price. If we are true to what we know how to do, then we will also be true to what the customer expects from us.”
This new strategy, introduced by Vigneron on taking up the CEO position in 2016, has seen the brand refocus on the values that have forged its strength and reputation for more than a century. For the brand’s watches, this has meant a return to non-round forms, a tradition at the firm, with slender, elegant shapes and an emphasis on women’s timepieces. Its incursion into the highest realms of mechanical watchmaking — still in evidence in 2017 with the extraordinarily complex Rotonde de Cartier Minute Repeater Mysterious Double Tourbillon — has gradually taken a back seat to models that are part of the brand’s history, as splendid today as ever. “We are coming back to Cartier’s foundations,” explains Arnaud Carrez, Marketing and Communications Director. “We’re not just tapping into this legacy, we’re enriching it too with all the creativity of Cartier, in particular through our Cartier Privé collection of limited-edition interpretations of signature watches that use Cartier’s expertise to bring a design to life.”
C A R TI E R BAIGNOIRE ALLONGÉE. THE BAIGNO I R E IS A WATCH OF
SANTOS-DUMONT DE CARTIER. WHEN A TIMEPIECE IS THIS MODERN
MANY FACES. BORN IN PARIS IN THE L ATE 1950S, ITS PERFECT OVAL
I N TEM P ER A M EN T A N D D ES I G N , I T ’S H A R D TO I M AG I N E TH AT I T ’S
U N D ERWEN T A TR A N S F O R M AT I O N I N 1960S SW I N G I N G LO N DO N ,
ACTUALLY CELEBR ATING ITS 115TH ANNIVERSARY THIS YE AR! THE
STRETCHING ITS FORMS TO ADORN WOMEN’S WRISTS WITH A MIX OF
NEW SANTOS-DUMONT WATCH HONOURS THE ONE WHICH CARTIER
ELEGANCE AND E XTR AVAGANCE . RENAMED BAIGNOIRE ALLONGÉE,
FIRST IMAGINED IN 1904 FOR THE PIONEERING AVIATOR , ALBERTO
IT CONTINUES TO PROVE THAT NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE E XCESS,
SANTOS-DUMONT. A CASE IN GOLD OR STEEL , ROMAN NUMER ALS,
WHEN IN E XPERT HANDS. ITS L ATEST ASSE T? A PINK GOLD BE ZEL
VISIBLE SCREWS, BE ADED CROWN AND A BLUE CABOCHON CARRY
WHOSE SCULP TED SPIKES BORROW FROM CARTIER’S JE WELLERY
ON THE LEGACY OF THIS TRULY CL ASSIC TIMEPIECE .
IDIOM AND THE CLOUS DE PARIS HOBNAIL DESIGN.
A winning strategy So what brings a customer to Cartier? Arnaud Carrez answers in a flash: “Beautiful, timeless objects. The fact that Cartier began as a jeweller gives it a unique personality in watchmaking.” For the past three years, the Parisian firm has revisited, with great success, the icons of a rich past; watches so essentially Cartier they are already classics in their own right. It all began in 2017 with the return of the Panthère, a star of the 1980s. Next came the Santos de Cartier, designed in 1904 by Louis Cartier for his friend, the dashing aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont, and the first watch to be made specifically for the wrist. Cartier is also introducing a new line within the Santos collection, by the name of Santos-Dumont. These new models feature a more slimline case and a pareddown dial, with a high-autonomy quartz movement. Another model making its return to the spotlight is the Baignoire. Imagined circa 1910, it fits perfectly into Cartier’s design language in both its original form and the elongated Allongée version that came out of Cartier’s London studio at the height of the Swinging Sixties. So, is Cartier back to being Cartier? “It’s a totally winning strategy because it’s coherent,” enthuses Arnaud Carrez. Eric Dumatin
