Cartier's Culture of Design - a New Year's campaign devoted to the iconic designs

Cartier starts the new year with an international campaign devoted to its iconic designs.

For this new campaign, Cartier invites you to (re)discover the diversity of its iconic collections – Santos, Tank, Trinity, Love, Juste Un Clou, Panthère and Ballon Bleu through a series of images. They reflect Cartier’s stringent standards and design vision that have led the Maison to the constant quest for the perfect form based on the purity of the line, the accuracy of the shape, the precision of proportions and the precious details.

By bringing these collections together for the first time, this campaign pays tribute to the line which is powerful, clean and precise, like those of a designer, born from a vision and an intention. Thus, it raises design to the rank of culture, by creating objects that remain desirable over time.

“Cartier is a pioneering house, in constant creative exploration. This campaign demonstrates the Maison’s ability to create cult designs that stand the test of time, objects that are at once immediately recognisable and bear witness to the past,” said Arnaud Carrez, Cartier’s Marketing and Communication Director. “The simplicity and strength of these images allow us to celebrate a unique collection of cult design creations that have earned a place in the history of jewellery and watchmaking, and in the hearts of our customers.”

The campaign alternates between featuring all the collections and each one individually. It was was unveiled on 6 January 2021 in the international press, on the company’s social media platforms as well as on the website, cartier.com. In doing so, the Maison continues to keep the history of these pieces alive. Indeed, the remarkable, pure designs make it a unique collection.

For Cartier, it all starts with the design

An uncompromising feature: the line is clean and precise

This radical concept, conceived by one of the only Maisons capable of designing creations that form a unique collection of cult jewellery and watchmaking designs, will become Cartier’s signature.

Tank, Trinity, Juste un Clou, Santos, Love, Panthère or Ballon Bleu, instantly recognisable, these collections are based on four main principles of creation: the purity of the line, the accuracy of the shape, the precision of proportions, the precious details.

The purity of the line

The purity of line is Cartier’s desire to reduce the piece to its purest form: structure.

Easy to read and instantly understandable.

Obsessed: the quest for pared-down simplicity dictates features that are recognisable from the first glance. This requires high level of expertise.

The accuracy of the shape is above all its exploration

What can be created with a square? A circle, an oval or a rectangle?

Cartier thinks like a designer, measuring the effects of symmetry, parallelism or asymmetry that each shape offers.

By adding perspective, creating depth and calling on the curve of the pieces, the Maison seeks to provide them with movement and reinvent them in a new form.

The precision of proportions is the balance between the lines and shapes, the volume and harmony that emanates from the design

The precision is measured by the way you wear it, much like that of clothing. Proportion than takes on its true meaning, determining the piece's elegance which fits naturally into this context.

It is this original precision that allows Cartier to rework the proportions of the pieces according to the times, yet without distorting them.

The shape must also be comfortable, in harmony with movement. Proportion relies on technical innovation, ergonomics research, and understanding the piece's function.

The precious details

The precious details refer to the stylistic intuition of a jeweller who sees beauty or finds and dares to show what others hide.

The details must have meaning and not be features aimlessly or artificially.

These are pieces of great value, and Cartier is ready to let this show.

Beloved objects

This intelligence of design places objects seamlessly within their time as well as within the future. Contemporary, although vintage to some, these designs stand the test of time: classic, eternal, essential.

They can all be reinvented and continue to inspire conversations: a boundless source of creative energy which Cartier dares to develop over time.

A cultural, but also emotional heritage. These pieces are heirlooms. The connection that we have to these pieces continues to grow with time. A powerful feeling directly linked to the idea of heritage and
the timelessness that they symbolise.

The family of watches and jewellery, a remarkable collection in the history of jewellery as well as watchmaking, affirms Cartier's original intention to create designer pieces.

Ballon Blue de Cartier

Ballon Bleu was created in 2007 from a new vision of roundness which, for the Cartier designers, involved giving volume to the circle. Doubly convex, its shape strikes the perfect balance between line and volume. To avoid any breaking of the line, the sapphire crystal winding crown is perfectly integrated into the case, with the crown cap under a metal hoop at three o’clock protecting the blue bubble.

Juste un Clou

With Juste un Clou, Cartier enhances the design of a basic shape by transforming a simple nail into a piece of jewellery. Clean, radical and uncompromising lines, the precision of this bracelet’s proportions, created for Cartier in New York in the 1970s by Aldo Cipullo, allows the oval to hug the wrist.

Tank

In 1917, Louis Cartier took inspiration from the purity of the line to create a new watch shape.

The two parallel brancards are an established signature of the Tank watch. Inspired by the design of a combat vehicle viewed from above, this watch follows one clear graphics principle: the brancards were the treads, the case was the turret.

From this combination came a new and fundamental principal: the case attachments are aligned with the strap to maintain the rhythm of the design.

Trinity

The Trinity ring - how jewellers reveal the beauty of a shape with a single ring.

With clean lines and perfect proportions, it is made up of three intertwined, mobile bands in three colours of gold. A design created by Louis Cartier in 1924.

Panthère de Cartier

First created in 1983, the Panthère watch is above all a piece of art: the square case with rounded angles, the seamless curve of the horns and the visible rivets.

With the Panthère watch, Cartier aspires for clean lines, without losing sight of the softness of the lines which make this timepiece a quintessential jewellery watch. The watch takes its name from the bracelet: ultra-flexible, it echoes the movements of the Maison's emblematic animal. Redesigned in 2017, the Panthère de Cartier watch reflects liberated, joyful and triumphant femininity.

Love

Love is the expression of Cartier's design vision.

Clean lines mean perfection: an oval bracelet created by Aldo Cipullo in New York in 1969 composed of two rigid and flat circular arcs that must be screwed together using a suitable screwdriver.

Santos de Cartier

Created in 1904, the Santos watch design is based on the concept of form, the taste for minimalism, the precision of proportions and finally, an eye for detail.

For the first time, Cartier created a square watch for the wrist at a time when the pocket watch was round. The screws, traditionally hidden in watchmaking, are made visible and become an aesthetic code of the collection.

About Cartier

A reference in the world of luxury, Cartier, whose name is synonymous with open-mindedness and curiosity, stands out with its creations and reveals beauty wherever it may be found.

www.cartier.com