Caroline, Queen of Naples was the first person in the world who wore a wrist watch, which was designed and manufactured by Abraham Breguet.
That was in the year 1812. For nearly a century after that (99 years to be precise) men never got an opportunity to wear a wrist watch. That development only happened in the year 1911 when the Parisian jeweller, Cartier sold the first men’s wrist watch branded as ‘Santos’. Louis Cartier (1875 – 1942) in fact had been credited for creating the first man’s wrist watch in 1904, when he designed one for his friend and client, Brazilian Alberto Santos-Dumont.The Brazilian, who was one of the early pioneers of aviation, needed a suitable timepiece for his dare devil flights.
The first Cartier Santos was designed by Edmond Jaeger (a famous watch maker himself) and continues to be a fashionable watch even today.
History
The history of Cartier in many ways starts with Louis Francois Cartier (1819 – 1904), even though his grandfather known by the same name started his business as a goldsmith in Paris. In 1874, Alfred Cartier took over the business from his father Louis Francois. Alfred’s three sons, Louis (Jr), Pierre and Jacques eventually converted the family business into a global empire.
Louis Cartier’s (Jr) marriage to Countess Almasey of Hungary got the family’s entry into the Royalty of Europe. One of his important clients, King Edward VII once described Louis Cartier as ‘The jeweller of Kings, the King among jewellers’.
King Edward VII appointed Cartier to his Court and granted him permission to open the Cartier store at 4, Burlington Street in London in 1902. By then Cartier had been selling his jewellery to the Tsars of Russia, virtually all the Crown Heads in Europe, most Maharajahs of India and the Kings of Siam and Nepal.
Pierre Cartier took the Cartier brand to America and sold the famous, ‘Hope Diamond’, to Mrs. Evalyn Mclean in New York.
Louis and Jacques both died in 1942 and the empire began to crumble. By 1962, operations in London and New York were sold off to independent owners and Cartier was in real danger of loosing its global dominance as a jeweller.
Santos
Throughout the 19th century gentlemen considered it appropriate to carry only time pieces. Wrist watches were considered to be too feminine. The Cartier Santos’ promos showed that an adventurous gentleman was wearing a wrist watch in all elements of his life.
Being a jeweller, Cartier broke free from traditional watch shapes namely, circular and rectangular. Cartier was responsible for the introduction of square, tortue, tonneau and oval shapes in wrist watches.
The most bizarre shape was designed by R. Emerson and introduced to the market in 1960 called the ‘Crash’. The first watch in an uneven shape and many people called it the ‘Dali watch’ even though Surrealist artist Salvador Dali had nothing to do with it.
The Pasha of Moracco ordered Cartier to design an exclusive watch for his golden jubilee. Cartier commercially could not sell the design for the next fifty years being contractually prohibited.
On the completion of the contracted fifty year period Cartier introduced Pasha during the mid-90’s and Pasha is now the largest selling Cartier model in steel, gold and platinum.
A lesser known fact is that Louis Cartier was the first jeweller to have introduced platinum to jewellery and the first piece of such jewellery was sold to the Russian Royalty.
Resurrection
Cartier went through a rough patch and a gradual sliding down of Cartier was to be arrested with investors Joseph Kanoui taking control of Cartier Paris in 1972. It took Kanoui another seven years to buy back Cartier operations in London and New York and recreate the original Cartier Empire.
By 1988 Cartier had acquired two major Swiss watch brands namely, ‘Piaget’ and ‘Baume & Mercier’. By 1993, Kanoui, with help and assistance from Alain Perrin had created a brand new group called the ‘Vendome Luxury Group’.
Vendome now owns such illustrious brands as Cartier, Alfred Dunhill, Montblanc, Piaget, Baume & Mercier, Chloe and Hackett.
Will the Vendome Group be a threat any time soon to the Swatch Group?
The answer lies in replicating Hayek’s fundamental strategy, namely, when will the Vendome Group introduce a sub-$100 watch and how successful will it be in capturing the mass market?
Vendome does not have a super premium watch and it does not have a mass market watch. Cartier, not withstanding its history is squeezed in the middle. What makes life more difficult is that a large percentage of Cartier watches are now available with Quartz movements!
How I wish Vendome will take us back to Cartier’s glorious days!
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