Maison Cartier is marrying the art of yesterday and the science of tomorrow with their official lineup in the 2022 Watches and Wonders.
Just when we thought we’d leave the abstractness of time to the scientists, Cartier launches a collection of timepieces carrying the patina of the lines in their video—Time is warped. Time is immaterial.
CEO Cyrille Vigneron shares in an interview with Watch Revolution that the lineup presents diversity in their pieces without sacrificing their Cartier signature. With the evolution of telling time—from sundials to grandfather clocks to digital forms in gadgets—the House reintroduces the wristwatch as a piece that transcends.
Vigneron explains that it is about breaking the binaries in fashion and gender. Because of its androgynous style, a Cartier piece can be worn by anyone. By anyone, it can be the younger generation appreciating the classic look of a watch as an heirloom.
In the discussion of how fleeting time is, the House boasts of the watches’ durability in withstanding the entrances and exists of trends. In 2021, a Cartier Pebble wristwatch from 1972 was sold for CHF 403,2000 or PHP 22.2M in The Geneva Watch Auction XIII.
There is no doubt that these pieces from Maison Cartier will truly stand the test of time.
Tank Louis Cartier and Tank Must
The Tank Louis Cartier introduces two new monochrome dial colors—the signature Cartier red and the anthracite grey. With the elimination of nine hour marks comes the precise markings from an electrochemical engraving technique that creates dimension to the dial. This design pays homage to the Cartier Must watch from the 1980s.
Clean and classic—that is the 2022 Tank Must with its all-black dial and blue cabochon for a slight standout. With its timeless look, what’s the next innovation for the Tank Must?
Pasha de Cartier
Like the namesake of this watch, the Pasha de Cartier community is for playful and resilient extroverts. The Pasha de Cartier Grille’s detachable protective grid that encases the dial is a nod to the 1943 grid feature. Another take on playfulness is the ability to personalize your Pasha with double C, heart, or eye charms. The Mooonphase, Skeleton, and Flying Tourbillon Pasha de Cartier watches are an amalgamation of creativity and complication with their dials and cuts. For those who are beginning to explore a braver sense of style, the classic, original Pasha with a new anthracite dial is the one for you.
Ballon Bleu de Cartier
Besides the emphasis on the sapphire cabochon crown, this family gives you an array of choices from the straps to its cases, and dials—different, yet complementing the signature crown. Surely, these designs will keep the Ballon Blue de Cartier rolling in the market.
Coussin de Cartier
The Coussin does the illusion of movement best. Let not its name fool you—the collection may seem soft because of the cushion-like shape of the cases, but all the pieces are stone-studded in different sizes and styles, creating a spiral persistence of beauty and time.
The two limited edition designs feature diamonds and colored stones, emeralds, tourmalines, tsavorites and sapphires that form a grid pattern, creating another form of movement.
Indomptables de Cartier
In a world where only the fittest survive, wear your animal spirits around your wrist with these timepieces. Two animals come face-to-face with each model, biting the face of time in a clasp system. In its duality as a watch and bracelet, this new collection for Indomptables de Cartier is the perfect accessory to assert that power is beauty in the concrete jungle.
Métiers d’Art
It is an open secret that Cartier’s artisanship comes from the brand’s attention to detail and its commitment to create beautiful pieces that knows no bounds of time. The limited watches from The Maison des Métiers d’Art are a testament to this.
The Crash Tigrée Métamorphoses Watch incorporates Dali’s surrealist style also found in the pioneer model of the Tank Crash in 1967. Besides the marvelous elements of the timepiece— from the asymmetry of the dial to enameling of the stripes and the strategic assembly of the diamonds—it gives more possibilities for the interpretation of the spectator, which is exactly what the Maison is aiming for.
The Cartier Menagerie watches exhibit the blending of figurative and abstract languages—using a great deal of materials such as onyx, mother of the pearl, enamel, gold powder, sapphire, gold, diamonds, and even wood, the zebra and the panther became the subjects with the abstract backgrounds in perfect harmony with the figures.
Masse Mystérieuse
The Maison stays true to its idea that time is warped with the Masse Mystérieuse. The hands are attached to the oscillating motor yet also isolated from its movement, giving mystery to the mechanism. The design is a modern take of the mystery clock, a collaboration piece of Cartier and Maurice Couet. The clocks of Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, the father of modern magic, inspired Couet’s idea for the mystery clocks.
Breaking the magic code, the House explains that although the hands are suspended from movement, the irregular swaying activates the ticking of hours and minutes through an attachment to two metal discs concealed in the skeletonized rotor.
After eight years of research and development to bring back what fashion magazine La Gazette du Bon Ton in 1925 deemed as “the miracles of timekeeping”, Maison Cartier proves that the piece is, indeed, a mystery clock redux—a watch that knows no antiquity because of its magic.
Panthere
Described as the Maison Cartier’s “quintessential jewelry watch”, the Panthere is a nod to their muse. The structure of the bracelet resembles the leaps and strides of the panther, a similar look to an engineer type strap.
The four new satin dials—golden plum, yellow gold, midnight blue, and black—play with the tints and shades of the pure colors, creating an illusion when the watches are worn.
This is the best new feline accessory for the fierce.
Santos
A revered style from the brand, the collection maintains its namesake’s ideals in being simple, practical, and elegant with the new pieces of the Santos silhouette. The House introduces new colors to the Santos Dumont—burgundy and platinum, green and beige, and black and steel.
The Santos de Cartier line also features the staple pairing of blue and silver, best worn with denims or pieces of clothing in blue hues.
If finesse were a watch, it would definitely be the Santos.
Cartier Libre
Maison Cartier continues its dive to creative freedom of expression with the new designs for the Libre collection—set as a time-telling piece of jewelry, the strap is reversible and elastic. The new collection also comes in different colorways—one is rose gold with triangular embellishments of black spinels, moonstones, and diamonds; the other black and white with diamonds and spinels; and finally, the one with garnets, diamonds, moonstones, and black spinels.
Cartier Privé
With the celebration of the Tank Chinoise’s 100th year, Maison Cartier opens the sixth chapter of the Tank Chinoise—the marriage of tradition and novelty in the designs inspired by Chinese architecture. The original structure channeled the temples and porticos, but the House refines it this time through the beveled bars.
Another model of the Tank Chinoise is patterned from a Chinese element of design—the ancient geometric windows allowing us to peek through the walls. Like this concept, the new timepiece comes with an open dial, giving us a glimpse of how the watch machines work.
Cartier is located at Greenbelt 4, Shangri-La Plaza, and Solaire Resort & Casino.