The House of Cartier is one of the oldest jewelers in the world, enjoying a reputation for selling only the finest quality jewelry and accessories.

Cartier is especially famous for its innovative and imaginative wristwatches, many of which are extremely desirable and recognizable.

Louis Cartier, one of the sons of the firm’s founder, was a great lover of mechanical pocket watches and wanted the company to build its own watches.

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The first Cartier wristwatches were diamond-studded bracelets for ladies, which were introduced in 1888 but were not very successful at first, until until Paris fashions changed in the mid-1890s when a slender wrist adorned with a bejewelled watch became a status symbol.

Then came a breakthrough. In 1904, a Brazilian aviator named Alberto Santos Dumont consulted Louis Cartier about a watch that would be suitable for him whilst in flight.  The problem was that fumbling with a pocket watch meant that the aviator had to take both hands from the aircraft’s controls. Santos asked Cartier to produce a watch  that would allow him to keep his hands on the controls and still be able to time the flight.

Cartier and his master watchmaker, Edmond Jaeger, soon came up with a flat, square wristwatch which they appropriately named the Santos wristwatch. It went on sale to the public in 1922 and the design became popular throughout the world. This watch is still produced today with only slight modification to the original design.

By 1907, Cartier had branches in London, New York and St. Petersburg and was quickly becoming one of the most successful watch companies in the world. The company continued to introduce  innovative designs including the Baignoire and Tortue models in 1912, both of which are still in production today.

During the First World War soldiers were issued with wristwatches, called trench watches. These were made like pocket watches with the crown at the 12 o'clock position. and they tended to be rather  large and bulky. After the war pocket watches went out of fashion.

Cartier introduced the Tank model's debut in 1917, inspired by the design of Renault tanks used during World War I. Rudolph Valentino wore a Tank in the 1921 silent classic “The Sheik” – an early example of publicity associated with a celebrity.

In the early 1920s Cartier formed a joint company with Edward Jaeger (of the famed Jaeger-Le Coultre company) to produce movements solely for Cartier, though Cartier still used movements from other great makers. Cartier watches can be found with movements from Vacheron Constantin, Audemars-Piguet and Movado as well as Le Coultre.

During this period, Cartier developed a system of adding its own serial numbers to the watches it sold. These were usually a four-digit code stamped on the underside of one of the lugs. The presence of these numbers is now one of the definitive tests for whether a Cartier watch is genuine or otherwise.

In 1932, Cartier made a watertight watch for the Pasha of Marrakesh which was the first of its kind. This is still called the Pasha watch.

In 1940, Cartier introduced a motoring watch, with a curved shape that was designed to be worn on the inside of the wrist so the driver could view the face without moving hands from the steering wheel.

In 1942 Louis Cartier died, and without his leadership the company began to lose some of its innovation in design and technology The firm relied on producing numerous variations of the classic Tank In 1976  new life was breathed into the Cartier brand with the marketing of  the Must de Cartier and the Santos wristwatch was reissued in 1978. This enable the firm was able to re-establish itself as a luxury house for wristwatch scenes, jewellery and accessories.

Today, Cartier's most sought-after models include the classic Tank, the updated Tank Francaise which is a sports watch similar in concept to the original Santos, and the Panther, which features a very distinctive bracelet available in 18K gold, stainless steel and gold, or stainless steel.

A Cartier watch is a luxury item and is naturally finished to very high standards. The cases and bracelets in particular are meticulously handcrafted and exude quality in every sense of the word.