The watch world is on fire. We know this. But when we talk about the booming watch universe, we’re typically talking about a single slice of it: the steel sports watches
that drive collectors mad. Even the most popular watch coming out of Patek Philippe, famous for its dress watches, is a stainless steel sports watch so beloved that its president felt compelled to put it out of production so it wouldn’t devour the whole brand. So it’s something of a surprise that the brand with all the heat behind it right now is none other than Cartier—and that its reputation among collectors is warming on the strength of some very dressy watches.
Case in point: In May, a version of the brand’s famous Crash watch sold for roughly $105,000 against an estimate of only $25,700. That sale set a record for a Crash, which was quickly toppled in November, when a second Crash sold for $120,000. A month later, Christie’s sold yet a third Crash—this time for $225,000. The Crash’s explosion in value puts a fine point on an idea that’s been simmering for a couple of years in the collecting community: Cartier and its watches are surging. That’s thanks to the ways in which the collector community is maturing—but also the ways Cartier itself, a traditional old-world jeweler, is changing to suit those collectors’ tastes.
The record-setting Crash.
Courtesy of Christie'sCartier has always stuck out in the watch world. That, the brand’s representatives say, is kind of the point. “We were jewelers before we were watchmakers and this is our singularity in the watchmaking industry,” Marie-Laure Cérède, Cartier’s timepieces creation director. says. “We are working on watches as a jeweler, not as a watchmaker.” While some watch brands get caught up in technical details—whether or not a movement is made in house, how many more few extra hours can be built into a power reserve—Cartier thinks of design first. “Technique must serve the design, not the opposite,” says Cérède.
Accordingly, every Cartier watch begins with a designer putting pencil to paper. That’s by the insistence of Cérède. “Every, every, everything starts with a drawing,” she says. “When you draw by hand, it lets your imagination go.” Fittingly, Cartier’s new watches feel distinctly more hand-forged than those of its competitors: some are fashioned after cloches (the upside-down bowl that makes for dramatic restaurant reveals), while another appears to be designed by someone suffering from vertigo.