New York Times: The Genesis of Cartier Icons
Cartier’s most iconic designs were born from seminal moments in history, cultural collisions that transformed how we lived then—and now. Read Chapter 1 of 3 below or see more from the series on NYTimes.com.
The first quarter of the 20th century brought a dramatic turning point in creative expression throughout Europe. Travel was becoming more widespread and with it, arts and culture were being influenced by artistic movements from around the world. Paris in particular was a hub of an emerging avant-garde.
A modern man deeply interested in travel, culture and the arts, Louis Cartier, the grandson of jeweler and company founder, Louis-François Cartier, had taken over the Cartier on Paris’s Rue de la Paix in 1899. At the turn of the 20th century, Japanese prints, Islamic culture and Iberian sculpture were influencing art and, in turn, the pieces produced on Rue de la Paix.
“Louis was certainly the creative genius of the family,” says Jill Newman, a jewelry and watch journalist and editor at large for the Natural Diamond Council. “He was bold and curious and, while his peers were doing a certain style of jewelry, he came in influenced by architecture, the arts and culture of the Far East, even the decorative wreaths of the Versailles court. He had a very different reference than what was going on at the time.”
In 1904, Louis Cartier created a watch for his friend the Brazilian aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont, who required a reliable piece he could wear in the skies. The result was Cartier’s first leather-strapped wristwatch, the Santos. Practically, it did away with the fuss of reaching for a pocket watch. Visually, it set a new standard. Its functionality was not only embraced but put on display: The screw ends were revealed in a way that matched the proud engineering of an airplane.
It was geometric, square and “modern” without ornamentation. It was also produced in platinum, a very unusual (and resolutely tricky to master) material in watchmaking and jewelry at the time.
“Until then, everything had been made in gold or silver,” Newman says. “Platinum was used for industrial use. He sold a vision of what could be done with platinum: It was sturdy, shiny, it didn’t tarnish and he found a way to make this lightweight material strong enough to use. It was game-changing in the industry.”
The Santos went hand in hand with what was happening in the art scene in the city, too. Cubism, a movement pushed by a young Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, was highly influenced by African art. Its adherents were known for breaking up the surface of a subject with little care for realism. The paintings of the time show an angular modernity and interest in the world. Cartier’s geometric design for Santos, with the visible screw ends, was reflective of the trend toward industrialization and functionality.
The broadening horizons of the world in the first chapter of the 20th century helped business boom. Cartier opened stores in London and New York. It set up operations in India to cater to the maharaja and in St. Petersburg when Czar Nicholas II named Cartier his official purveyor. Yet the optimism of the beginning of the century turned in the 1910s, when a somber mood settled in Europe with the onset of the First World War.
Creatively though, the First World War led to the inception of another Cartier icon, the Tank. Its shape was first designed by Louis Cartier. It was appreciated for its signature parallel brancards, its clean lines and its balanced proportions. The watch’s name came when designers realized it resembled a Renault FT-17 tank when seen from above. Its austerity did away with the frilliness of Art Nouveau, the predominant style at the time.
“The rectangular shape really set Tank apart,” says Will Kahn, the former accessories and fashion director for Town & Country magazine. “It was in stark contrast to everything that was being done in the past, which was circular and more ornate. It’s these bold moves that push design forward.”
Indeed, this step into what was happening politically created an icon that has been produced ever since. It was soon followed by a piece that entwined Cartier once again in what was happening culturally in Europe: the Roaring Twenties. This, too, produced another emblematic piece.
The Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes was a summer-long exhibition arranged by the French government in Paris in 1925 to cast off the shadow of the war and retrigger the creative vigor that had preceded it. More than 15,000 exhibitors took part and it saw the rise of two key strands of European creativity: Art Deco and, in a pavilion designed by a young architect called Le Corbusier, the International Style.
With postwar desires for cultural reinvention swirling, Louis Cartier created the Trinity ring in 1924. At the time he was deeply embedded in Paris’s highest artistic circles and was thus inspired to combine three rings: one rose gold, one yellow gold and one platinum, to signify friendship, fidelity and love. Its clean lines and perfect proportions were an instant success. Production of the ring has continued ever since in numerous guises.
“Cartier was adventurous and well connected and it was this that made him especially interesting to people such as Santos and Cocteau, which produced such unique outcomes,” Newman says. “The Trinity was the antithesis of the colorful, exotic pieces that were famous at the time. It was streamlined, minimalist, architectural and genderless all at the same time.”
“Louis was not held back by the current standard or trends of how people lived or how people related to jewelry,” Kahn says. “He was forward-thinking enough to see a way people could wear jewelry in a different way.”
The Trinity to this day has kept something of its post-World War nature. It was an everyday item that could be worn by anyone, ditching the formality and engendered nature that jewelry was often defined by until then. This was a bold move that would foresee the changing nature of jewelry and fashion more broadly at the end of the 20th century.
While these three Cartier pieces are now familiar icons, they were highly avant-garde in their day. It was indeed why they became iconic. By reflecting new human pursuits — especially travel and culture — Cartier fit into a changing world. This would play out in how the Maison stayed at the forefront of cultural, social and even technological transformations, as the following story about Cartier’s love for New York City’s vibrant culture in the 1960 and ‘70’s can attest.