Right time and place for Cartier
The brand reintroduces a slightly updated Panthère watch at a star-studded gathering in Los Angeles.
Paris-based luxury brand Cartier decamped to Los Angeles recently to launch its Panthère de Cartier watch collection with an over-the-top fete at Milk Studios that saw Thomas Keller in the kitchen, Alicia Keys on stage, and red carpet trod by the likes of Marilyn Manson and Sofia Coppola.
Coppola was one of the evening’s co-hosts and, it turns out, one of the reasons L.A.was picked for the May 5 global launch party.
“Sofia Coppola is a friend of the house, and we had asked her to write and direct a short movie” for the marketing campaign, said Cartier International Chief Executive Cyrille Vigneron. “The young woman in the film is free-spirited and fearless and has a look [of] California style, and [Coppola] set the film and filmed it [in Los Angeles], so the first [inspiration] came from her.”
But Vigneron said there was a second reason to come to California to celebrate a watch that was offered from 1983 to the mid-aughts before being discontinued.
“It’s a rebirth,” he said. “There are two parts of the world where I think things begin — in Asia and in California. If the U.S. is the New World, then California is the new New World.… If Botticelli painted ‘The Birth of Venus’ today, she would be [emerging from the sea] in Avalon, not Cyprus. So we thought for a rebirth, L.A. would be the perfect place.”
The quartz-movement watch at the center of the celebration is elegant, feminine and sturdy-looking. Its square cases are on the small side (the small is 22mm and the medium is 27mm) with screwed-down bezels and octagonal-shaped crowns. According to Vigneron, a tiny tweak in the bracelet was the only change from the original version.
“They’re the same links as in the past,” he said, “but the old ones were a little bit looser, and when they’re looser, they can twist and break. People now have a more active lifestyle so it needs to be a little tighter, more like a second skin.”
He also explained why Cartier decided to revive a style that, in its heyday, graced the wrists of such notables as Keith Richards, Pierce Brosnan and Grace Jones.
In an effort to refocus on the women’s watch business (“Cartier had gone too much on the masculine side,” said Vigneron), the Panthère presented an opportunity just waiting to be pounced on.
“Looking back in [the archives], we found that the shape and proportion [of the Panthère] were perfect,” he said. “Watches are generally bigger now than they were 25 years ago, but these are the same proportions as the original. It’s timeless.”
The Panthère de Cartier collection is available now at Cartier’s Beverly Hills boutique and online retailer Net-a-Porter. It will be at Cartier boutiques worldwide June 1. Prices range from $4,000 to $123,000.