In 2018, Cartier quietly phased out its Fine Watchmaking department to focus on what it does best: design-centric timepieces for the quintessential gentleman.
The big news of 2018 (and boy, were there many in the world of watches) was one that was kept very much under wraps: the shuttering of Cartier’s Fine Watchmaking department. In hindsight, we should have seen it coming: Cartier had whittled down the production of its insanely complicated wristwatches in favour of reviving old favourites such as Tank and Panthère, and bolstering its new Drive de Cartier collection.
The French jeweller began its journey to amp up its serious holorogical ambitions in 2000, when it started acquiring watchmaking suppliers and manufactures in Switzerland. By 2008, its Fine Watchmaking department was established in La-Chaux-de-Fonds under the leadership of watchmaking wunderkind Carole ForestierKasapi. The first timepiece released under this new haute horlogerie arm was Ballon Bleu Flying Tourbillon, a marked departure from the brand’s previous watchmaking endeavours. For one, it was a hulk at 47mm, in line with the trend for monstrous watches of that time. Combining a testosterone-filled aesthetic with a ‘masculine’ complication was the first step in proving Cartier’s watchmaking legitimacy.
The timepieces launched since have been terrific—and this is no hyperbole. As Cartier sought to rework the wheels of traditional watchmaking and write a new lexicon for haute horlogerie, it eschewed the conventional by conceptualising novel ideas to re-engineer age-old complications. The innovations that emerged from its ateliers were truly mind-boggling, from Astrocalendaire that mutated the perpetual calendar into an amphitheatre display, to Rotonde de Cartier Minute Repeater Mysterious Double Tourbillon, which, as its name suggests, packs a whopping three complications.
This story is from the February 2019 edition of Esquire Singapore.
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This story is from the February 2019 edition of Esquire Singapore.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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