Cartier’s Concepts

by Y-Jean Mun-Delsalle

Cartier has long been known for its legendary models like the Tank, Pasha, Santos, Baignoire and Tortue, watches in pleasing shapes that embody quality and elegance. But until recently, the firm’s technical mettle took a back seat to its rich history as a designer and jeweler. For timepieces, Cartier historically provided the creative design vision while outsourcing the conception and execution of its movements.

Today, the firm’s watchmaking ability is second to none, and the firm has debuted exceptional complicated pieces where equal care has been placed on both technical and aesthetic aspects. This is Cartier’s new and dynamic approach to fine watchmaking.
But to succeed the brand needed to surmount skepticism that it was just another high-luxury brand trying its luck at watchmaking. As a result, several years ago the firm embarked on a quest to debut haute horlogerie with technologically cutting-edge timepieces. It aimed to reach a broader and more diverse market than did its previous technical range, the Collection Privée Cartier Paris, which was targeted at a very niche audience. And while many of those watches were conceived via collaboration between Cartier and illustrious complications house Renaud & Papi (now part of Audemars Piguet) and from work with Jaeger-LeCoultre, the brand had other plans for its future that would fully demonstrate its never-before-seen capability and its independence.
“At Cartier, we have a huge and long tradition in high watchmaking. But during recent years, our offer was not visible enough,” explained Hélène Poulit Duquesne, Cartier’s watchmaking marketing manager. “We were offering a few tourbillons each year, these being all pre-sold. So the visibility of our capabilities in high watchmaking was low. For the time being, we have decided to ‘go big’, meaning to develop quickly a large collection of different complications, enlarge the network and invest in communication in high watchmaking.”

 Full steam ahead
Fast-forward to April 2008 when Cartier launched its first watch showcasing the Geneva Seal, the Ballon Bleu de Cartier Flying Tourbillon in pink gold. This act marked its decisive entry into the haute horlogerie sphere, for not only had it crafted a high-complication watch within reach of the general public, but it had also incorporated a Cartier-manufactured movement inside a Ballon Bleu case that retained its distinctive Cartier curves.
The watch’s free-floating, ultra-thin and manual-winding tourbillon 9452 MC caliber features a fifty-hour power reserve and thickness of just 4.5 mm. It was the brand’s first complication to be produced outside of the CPCP range, entirely reconfigured from an existing Roger Dubuis design and improved to meet Cartier’s quality levels.
Dancing on the dial is a C-shaped tourbillon carriage, located at six o’clock, which completes a full rotation every sixty seconds. The 9452 MC caliber was in fact Cartier’s pièce de résistance, meant in part to prove that it would no longer be reliant on others for its watch movements. With one swift move, the firm had taken up the haute horlogerie gauntlet and shown its new true colors, setting the stage for its future horological feats.
The watch was only made possible because Cartier had established its own workshops within the Manufacture Genevoise de Haute Horlogerie, a fully-owned subsidiary of the Richemont Group, which came about with the Group’s purchase in 2007 of the Roger Dubuis manufacturing facilities (and its 28 movements) located in the outskirts of Geneva. This therefore allowed the watch to bear the Geneva Seal, a privilege reserved for an elite group of watch manufactures upholding Swiss watchmaking tradition. The badge of honor has been awarded to certain models from Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin, Chopard L.U.C. and Roger Dubuis.
“The Geneva Seal is one of the best quality hallmarks of traditional high watchmaking,” explains Poulit Duquesne. “It is a long-lasting high-quality guarantee. Reaching this level for Cartier since 2008, with one movement first and others after, means that it can meet the best standards of quality and craftsmanship. Clients are quite happy knowing that Cartier reaches this level, and it gives credibility to the brand.”