Ready to pounce
First seen in the 1980s, Cartier's Panthere watch re-emerges as a heady herd in 17 new versions.
Cartier has turned to its favourite pet as a way to bring the brand back into everyday focus with a watch that was popular for two decades – but it hasn’t stopped there. At the high end, and we mean really high, the venerable brand has asked the panther to jump through hoops to gain the attention of jewellery lovers and connoisseurs.
Let’s begin with the reborn Panthère de Cartier, the major release for the brand this year, a watch Cartier describes as “jewellery first, timepiece second”.
Introduced in 1983, it was offered for some 20 years before being discontinued, making way for models such as the Ballon Bleu. The Panthère now reappears in the familiar square case in two sizes, 22mm and 27mm, with a remarkable 17 versions on offer.
You can wear it as a watch or looser as a bracelet. It retains the familiar bezel attached with screws, the “railway-track” minute markings and, in the interests of keeping things slim, new quartz movements.
As for the variants, the range encompasses cases in steel and various golds, with diamond embellishments and – most dramatically – panther-like black enamel spots offered on limited edition versions.
With such feline looks and a range of price-points – from a helpful $5600 to all of $197,000 – these are watches that will be around for another 20 years, and more.
Panther play
Cartier being Cartier, the brand hasn’t discounted the thought that you might want your cat to be even more exotic and its presence not limited to the name of the watch on your wrist. It has taken the panther and interpreted it more literally this time, in three stunning artistic creations.
The Panthère Joueuse is a collaboration between the house’s watchmaking and jewellery workshops, with the animal, studded with 185 carats of brilliant-cut diamonds, moving around the dial as one with the calibre itself to tell the time.
Minutes are indicated by its head and paws while a ball the animal appears to be chasing marks the hours. This tableaux required an entirely new self-winding mechanical movement which is hidden from view and presented in a 40mm case of white gold.
A second play on the panther is the Panthère Royale, with the beast silhouetted against a background of white-gold, diamond-dotted circles, a smaller watch at 36mm and equipped with a quartz movement, daintier but no less captivating in its appearance.
If neither of these is to your liking, the panther comes alive with colour in a flamed gold Ronde Louis Cartier timepiece, again with mechanical movement under a dial that pools in-house enamelling, granulation and filigree techniques. Spanning 42mm and framed with diamonds, it’s the largest of Cartier’s posse of panthers, but who wouldn’t want to find room for it on their wrist?
A woman in a man’s world
If most watch company senior executives are men, this is doubly true in the case of master watchmakers. It’s just one of the reasons Cartier’s Carole Forestier-Kasapi is a standout.
The brand’s director of movement creation for the past dozen years, she leads a team that’s created an astonishing range of new timepieces in recent years, watches that have pushed the boundaries both in terms of mechanical inventiveness and beguiling beauty.
The latest example is the calibre driving the Panthère Joueuse, a watch where the movement itself turns in sync with the panther to indicate the time.
Forestier-Kasapi’s talent is rare and widely acknowledged, earning awards including Best Watchmaker at the Geneva Grand Prix d’Horlogerie five years ago. It also comes naturally. Her father, mother and brother were watchmakers and at 16 she left her Paris home to begin watchmaking in Switzerland. As it transpired, she never left.
Based at Cartier’s La Chaux-de-Fonds manufacture, she explains her role thus: “We have a storied past at the maison and my philosophy as a creator is to continue the story.”
It’s a nod to the fact that no matter the complication or creativity, a Cartier timepiece – like a Rolex – is always recognisable thanks to adherence to a number of visual codes.These include blued hands, a cabochon on the crown, and bold Roman numerals either applied or sculpted, while the Cartier panther is a frequent presence in timepiece creations.
“You have to respect that but go further and further, exploring shapes, and I try to apply the same philosophy to the movements,” Forestier-Kasapi says.
That might sound simple enough, but considering work on new movements such as that for the Panthère Joueuse begins years before it sees the light of day, you begin to appreciate the name behind the faces.