Into the Wild
Cartier graces the world of horology with its newest series of state-of-theart watches featuring intricate and delicate details inspired by the beauty of the animal world
Although the Covid-19 pandemic puts a pause in large gatherings and world travels, the 2021
Watches and Wonders Geneva still happened virtually with equal excitement from collectors and media alike. The annual event has now become an arena where prestigious timepieces showcase their breakthrough designs and engineering perfection in the horology industry. This year, the prominent watches and jewellery brand Cartier introduced its two latest collections to the table: La Panthère and Cartier Libre, which reflect on devotion to tradition, elegance, and performance.
Every year, the Maison explores its repertoire of signature watches and further develops groundbreaking high jewellery timepieces. In the third opus of the Cartier Libre collection, the house designers beautifully combine its watchmaking technique and excellence with iconic animals from its menagerie. These unique combinations transform dials, cases and bracelets into true works of art and breathe a new life to the latest Cartier Libre watches, Baignoire Turtle and Tortue Snake.
Both timepieces show how Cartier’s creativity liberates itself from conventional wisdom into creating gorgeous designs. The tortoise-themed Baignoire watch, for example, features a blue-coloured steel hand against a diamond-set dial. A beautiful geometric motif of black and anthracite lines decorates its dial. Dotted with diamonds, buff-top tsavorites and sapphires, the Cartier Libre Baignoire
Turtle exemplifies mastery over high-jewellery and watchmaking techniques.
On another note, the Cartier Libre Tortue Snake represents the definition of elegance. The snakeinspired watch comes complete with scales made from black and coral-coloured enamel, mother-ofpearl, drops of polished gold and closed-set diamonds. Moreover, a powerful hand-wound mechanical movement 430MC gives it a power reserve of up to 38 hours. Together with Cartier Libre Baignoire Turtle, both visually striking timepieces are available in limited numbers of 30 each.
Besides the Cartier Libre collections, Cartier also presented its high-jewellery La Panthère watches at this year’s Watches and Wonders Geneva. The lineup is available in 18k pink gold and yellow gold, with each piece boasting different variations of the panther motif. Powered with a quartz movement and adorned with more than 400 brilliant-cut diamonds in each iteration, the crown jewel among this collection is Révélation d’une Panthère. The limited-edition watch of 20 pieces features a blue mother-of-pearl dial with a panther motif made of 650 brilliant-cut diamonds. Suffice to say, Cartier has once again succeeded in presenting the character of the brand through innovative techniques and eclectic details in its latest collections.