Cartier Stylos Pen Guarantee Certificate.

Cartier International SNC, or simply Cartier (/ˈkɑːrtieɪ/ KAR-tee-ay, French: [kaʁtje]), is a French luxury goods conglomerate that designs, manufactures, distributes, and sells jewellery, leather goods, and watches.[2][3][4] Founded by Louis-François Cartier (1819–1904) in Paris in 1847, the company remained under family control until 1964.[4] The company is headquartered in Paris and is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Swiss Richemont Group.[5][6] Cartier operates more than 200 stores in 125 countries, with three Temples (Historical Maisons) in London, New York, and Paris.[6][7]

Cartier is regarded as one of the most prestigious jewellery manufacturers.[4][8][9][10][11][12] Forbes ranked Cartier on its Most Valuable Brands list as 56th in 2020, with a brand value of $12.2 B and revenue of $6.2 B.[1][13]

Cartier has a long history of sales to royalty.[14] King Edward VII referred to Cartier as "the jeweller of kings and the king of jewellers."[4][15] For his coronation in 1902, Edward VII ordered 27 tiaras and issued a royal warrant to Cartier in 1904.[4][16] Similar warrants soon followed from the courts of Spain, Portugal, Serbia, Russia and the House of Orléans.

Early history

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Louis-François Cartier founded Cartier in Paris in 1847 when he took over the workshop of his master, Adolphe Picard.[17] In 1874, Louis-François' son Alfred Cartier took over the company, but it was Alfred's sons Louis, Pierre, and Jacques who established the brand name worldwide.[17]

Pierre Cartier

Louis ran the Paris branch, moving to the Rue de la Paix in 1899. He was responsible for some of the company's most celebrated designs, such as the mystery clocks (a type of clock with a transparent dial and so named because its mechanism is hidden), fashionable wristwatches and exotic orientalist Art Deco designs, including the colorful "Tutti Frutti" jewels.[18][19][20]

In 1904, Brazilian pioneer aviator, Alberto Santos-Dumont complained to his friend Louis Cartier of the unreliability and impracticality of using pocket watches while flying. Cartier designed a flat wristwatch with a distinctive square bezel that was favored by Santos-Dumont and many other customers.[21] This was the first and only time the brand would name a watch after its original wearer.[22] The "Santos" watch was Cartier's first men's wristwatch. In 1907, Cartier signed a contract with Edmond Jaeger, who agreed to exclusively supply the movements for Cartier watches.[23] Among the Cartier team was Charles Jacqueau, who joined Louis Cartier in 1909 for the rest of his life, and Jeanne Toussaint, who was Director of Fine Jewellery from 1933.

Pierre Cartier established a New York City branch in 1909, moving in 1917 to 653 Fifth Avenue, the Neo-Renaissance mansion of Morton Freeman Plant (son of railroad tycoon Henry B. Plant), designed by architect C.P.H. Gilbert.[24] Cartier purchased it from the Plants in exchange for $100 in cash and a double-stranded natural pearl necklace valued at the time at $1 million.[25] By this time, Cartier had branches in London, New York and Saint Petersburg and was quickly becoming one of the most successful watch companies.[11][3]

Designed by Louis Cartier, the Tank watch was introduced in 1919 and was inspired by the newly introduced tanks on the Western Front in World War I.[17] In the early 1920s, Cartier formed a joint-stock company with Edward Jaeger (of Jaeger-LeCoultre) to produce movements solely for Cartier. Cartier continued to use movements from other makers: Vacheron Constantin, Audemars Piguet, Movado, and LeCoultre. It was also during this period that Cartier began adding its own reference numbers its watches by stamping a four-digit code on the underside of a lug. Jacques took charge of the London operations and eventually moved to the current address at New Bond Street.

Re-organization

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After the death of Pierre in 1964, Jean-Jacques Cartier (Jacques's son), Claude Cartier (Louis's son), and Marion Cartier Claudel (Pierre's daughter)—who respectively headed the Cartier affiliates in London, New York, and Paris—sold the businesses.

In 1972, Robert Hocq, assisted by a group of investors led by Joseph Kanoui, bought Cartier Paris.[26] In 1974 and 1976, respectively, the group repurchased Cartier London and Cartier New York, thus reconnecting Cartier worldwide.[26] The new president of Cartier, Robert Hocq, coined the phrase "Les Must de Cartier" (a staff member is said to have said "Cartier, It's a must!" meaning something one simply must have) with Alain Dominique Perrin, who was a General Director of the company.[27][28] As a result, in 1976, "Les Must de Cartier" became a diffusion line of Cartier, with Alain D. Perrin being its CEO.[29][30][31]

In 1979, the Cartier interests were combined, with Cartier Monde uniting and controlling Cartier Paris, London, and New York. Joseph Kanoui became vice president of Cartier Monde. In December 1979, following the accidental death of president Robert Hocq, Nathalie Hocq (daughter of Hocq) became president.[26][31]

Recent development

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Cartier is in the former Morton F. Plant House on Fifth Avenue in New York.

In 1981, Alain Dominique Perrin was appointed Chairman of Cartier SAA and Cartier International.[28][30] The next year, Micheline Kanoui, wife of Joseph Kanoui, became head of jewellery design and launched her first collection "Nouvelle Joaillerie."[29] In 1984, Perrin founded the Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain to bring Cartier into the twenty-first century, by forming an association with living artists. In 1986, the French Ministry for Culture appointed Perrin head of the "Mission sur le mécénat d'entreprise" (a commission to study business patronage of the arts). Two years later, Cartier gained a majority holding in Piaget and Baume & Mercier. From 1989 to 1990, the Musée du Petit Palais staged an exhibition of the Cartier collection, "L'Art de Cartier."[32]

Perrin founded an international committee in 1991, Comité International de la Haute Horlogerie, to organize its first salon, held on 15 April 1991; this has become an annual meeting place in Geneva for professionals in this field. The next year, the second exhibition of "L'Art de Cartier" was held at the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg. In 1993, the "Vendôme Luxury Group" was formed as an umbrella company to combine Cartier, Dunhill, Montblanc, Piaget, Baume & Mercier, Karl Lagerfeld, Chloé, Sulka, Hackett, and Seeger.[33]

In 1994, the Cartier Foundation moved to the Rive Gauche and opened headquarters in a building designed for it by Jean Nouvel. The next year, a major exhibition of the Cartier Antique Collection was held in Asia. In 1996, the Lausanne Hermitage Foundation in Switzerland exhibited "Splendours of the Jewellery", presenting a hundred and fifty years of products by Cartier.[34]

In 2012, Cartier was owned, through Richemont, by the South African Rupert family, and Elle Pagels, a 24-year-old granddaughter of Pierre Cartier.[35][36]