Cartier’s latest offerings reveal the maison at its best, underscored by technical finesse in the twin arts of watchmaking and jewellery-making.
Cartier’s latest offerings reveal the maison at its best, underscored by technical finesse in the twin arts of watchmaking and jewellery-making.
For most of the brands exhibiting at the annual Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie (SIHH) in Geneva, press presentations last 45 minutes to an hour. Cartier’s presentation, on the other hand, takes one-and-a-half hours, simply because of the tremendous number of novelties shown to the media. This year was no exception. For ladies, there was a brand new collection; two stunning high jewellery timepieces; several métiers d’art confections; skeleton editions of existing models; and various line extensions. “Next year it will be two hours, and the year after, three,” I joke to Carole Forestier-Kasapi, Cartier’s Head of Fine Watchmaking, after the presentation. The watchmaking maven shrugs off my comment. “It’s like that,” she says in her thick French accent. The abundance of novelties attests to the seemingly endless creativity of the house, and speaks volumes of its industrial capacity. The star of the show was the Tourbillon Mystérieux Azuré pendant watch (right), a pièce-unique that held court in the centre of Cartier’s exhibition space. Housed in a glass case and mounted on a rotating platform to be appreciated like a sculpture, the show-stopper was almost entirely encrusted in brilliant- and baguettecut diamonds and baguette sapphires. At the 12 o’clock position, a double tourbillon performed its ballet, its mystery dial harking back to the maison’s early 20th-century mystery clocks (and hence, its expertise in the craft). At the centre, the hours and minutes indication, and a series of gently curving white gold filaments radiating outwards that gave definition to the piece. At 6 o’clock, a magnificent 25.93-carat oval-shaped Ceylon sapphire that, in Cartier’s tradition of transformable jewellery, was detachable. It was Cartier at its best, fusing mechanical watchmaking dexterity with the artistry of gem-setting. The maison was clearly proud of this, showing off the fully decorated, manual-winding manufacture movement, Calibre 9463 MC, through a sapphire crystal on the rear. Naturally, such an elaborate piece of art required an equally elaborate amount of work—2,050 hours, or more than a year—to complete. The second pièce-unique, the Dragon Mystérieux watch, also featured a mystery dial, although this time there was no tourbillon, just the hours and minutes indication. In any case, a tourbillon would have detracted from the beauty of the dragon motif, another throwback to Cartier’s early 20th-century legacy, when Asian—in particular Chinese— ornamentation was all the rage. The beast was embellished with emerald eyes and a spectacular 23.77-carat fire opal, nestled between its horns. The dragon’s scales were wrought with diamonds. Ingeniously, the artisans decorated the animal’s spine with onyx, emphasising the three-dimensional quality of the micro-sculpture and lending dynamism to the composition. Coral was also used to provide structure and rhythm, giving the design balance and harmony—qualities very much admired in traditional Chinese aesthetic practice. So enchanting was the end result that one almost forgot that the clockwork—Calibre 9981 MC—was artfully concealed within the animal’s serpentine form. Again, such handiwork did not come easy: The jewellers spent no less than 1,100 hours, or more than six months, bringing this mythical, auspicious creature to life. “We also have a new watch for women called the Hypnose,” says Forestier-Kasapi. “It comes in two sizes, Small and Large. They’re all equipped with quartz movements and are adjusted at the back.” Five variants of each size exist. All are fashioned from 18-karat white or pink gold and range from full-set versions to those with just the bezels set. On the full-set models, a ring of black lacquer separated the outermost bezel from the inner one, making the outer bezel appear to “float” mysteriously on its own.
The Hypnose’s defining characteristic is its ovoid case shape, composed of a series of concentric ovals. Cartier’s Baignoire collection is also known for its oval case, but its form is much simpler. Additionally, the Baignoire’s Roman numerals are playfully distorted around the dial— elongated at ‘12’ and ‘6’ and truncated at ‘3’ and ‘9.’ On the Hypnose, the numerals are of uniform size. If the Hypnose is something you would wear on the cocktail circuit or at a black-tie gala, then the Panthères et Colibri might be something to consider for an intimate dinner party, if only because it is an unmistakable conversation starter. Here, Cartier shows off its whimsical side, using gold automatons to animate the watch’s power reserve-on-demand feature. Forestier-Kasapi explains: “When you push the crown, you activate the hummingbird. At the same moment, the baby panther, hidden by the mother, jumps out to try and catch the hummingbird. If [the hummingbird is] at the bottom, the power reserve is very low; if it’s on top, you have three days of power reserve.” The scene plays out on a jet-black, rhodium-finished dial, with the cub, bird, hour and minute hands wrought in 18-karat pink gold for heightened contrast. The mother panther, meanwhile, sits resplendent in her coat of diamonds with black lacquer spots and a pear-shaped emerald eye. An even more striking panther motif is to be found on the Ballon Bleu with enamel granulation, which uses the ancient technique of granulation, an art form that Cartier reintroduced on a Rotonde watch in 2013. Granulation involves creating small spheres from gold threads that are cut and heated over a flame. The gold granules are then assembled one by one and fused with the surface to create a highly textured, threedimensional relief. Care has to be taken not to melt the granules onto the surface but instead to solder them on with a tiny heated point. The various imperfections that arise give each surface its own unique character, so no two dials will ever be alike. Almost a month’s work is needed to animate this dial, which boasts the striking image of a panther’s face against a deep blue background. Cartier has limited this extraordinary watch to just 30 pieces. Finally, to further showcase its technical mastery, Cartier unveiled the Rotonde de Cartier Day/Night Retrograde Moon Phase timepiece, which according to Forestier-Kasapi uses “a movement from the fine watchmaking collection”—Calibre 9912 MC with automatic winding—“which has a day/night disc with a feminine interpretation.” The disc makes a complete rotation in 24 hours, during which time it reveals, through the large window in the upper half of the dial, the sun and the moon on blue lacquer skies. The moon phases are depicted in the lower half of the dial, with the new moon covered in blue sapphires while the full moon and crescent moons are sheathed in white diamonds. A retrograde moon-shaped hand indicates the moon phases, while a sword-shaped hand indicates the passing minutes. What about the hour hand, you ask? Well, the sun and moon motifs perform that role. Brilliant.
