Cover The new Cartier Love Unlimited
The new Cartier Love Unlimited
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Five decades after revolutionising the commitment token, Cartier introduces Love Unlimited, a flexible masterpiece that celebrates love without a limit
In 1969, as New York pulsed with cultural revolution and the hippie movement challenged every convention, Cartier designer Aldo Cipullo created what would become a veritable jewellery manifesto: the Love bracelet. This was not jewellery as adornment but as declaration—an oval bracelet fastened with a special screwdriver, a precious handcuff that required two people to secure its screws. By wearing it, every couple could proclaim their love for one another for all to see. Love, Cipullo suggested, was no longer ephemeral but something to be locked into place, worn on the wrist, impossible to remove alone.
What made the Love bracelet truly radical was not merely its symbolism but its aesthetic audacity. Cartier made the radical decision to leave the functional screws visible—a stylistic intuition that saw beauty where others saw mechanics. These screws echo the Santos de Cartier watch, which has featured them on its bezel since 1904, establishing a visual vocabulary that would become one of the Maison's most recognisable codes. The feeling of straightness is accentuated by the alignment of the screws, which follow the parallel lines of the bracelet, creating a design language of uncompromising precision and androgynous appeal.
Above With Love Unlimited, Cartier has invented a new symbolic gesture that cultivates the same ideal of love as the original Love bracelet
With Love Unlimited, Cartier has invented a new symbolic gesture that cultivates the same ideal of love as the original Love bracelet
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The bracelet’s impact was immediate and enduring. It soon became the subject of an emblematic advertisement featuring the hands of a woman and a man each wearing their Love, which was published in major New York newspapers. Over the decades that followed, the design proved remarkably versatile—set with diamonds, in a ring version, small, medium, as a pendant or dotted with stones, in white gold, multiplied by two or more—yet its essential character remained unchanged: rigid, oval, requiring that screwdriver to open and close.
Until now. With Love Unlimited, Cartier has invented a new symbolic gesture that cultivates the same ideal of love as the original Love bracelet. The question that drove its creation was deceptively simple: how can the rigid oval shape of the original bracelet be reinvented? The answer required more than a hundred trials and prototypes by the Manufacture and the Maison’s design studios—a true feat of innovation that transforms rigidity into fluidity without sacrificing the collection's iconic identity.
Above This new version of Love lets you connect with each other thanks to its clasp, to which you can attach another bracelet
This new version of Love lets you connect with each other thanks to its clasp, to which you can attach another bracelet
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The result is a bracelet composed of multiple gadrooned links punctuated by Love’s characteristic, entirely hand-polished screws. Here is the genius of the design: a jewelled cadence, between the verticality of the gadroons and the roundness of the screws, spaced differently for each size of the bracelet to preserve the harmony and proportion of the design. Every element serves both form and function—a ribbon of gold made up of 200 specially miniaturised components that eliminate the need for cuts and links, and guarantee comfort and suppleness when worn.
The engineering achievement is matched by an aesthetic one. Cartier has devised a patent-pending invisible clasp system, operated by a screw, that integrates perfectly with the bracelet, literally fusing with it. The clasp disappears into the design, creating what appears to be an unbroken circle of gold—tactile, flexible, radiant. More significantly, this new version of Love lets you connect with each other thanks to its clasp, to which you can attach another bracelet, making a pair, or an endless amount. A bracelet that can be exchanged and split into two, in white, rose or yellow gold—a new ritual for modern devotion.
55 years after Aldo Cipullo's revolutionary oval, Love Unlimited proves that the most enduring icons are not those that remain unchanged, but those bold enough to transform whilst keeping their soul intact. The screws remain visible. The symbolism deepens. And love, as always at Cartier, continues to inspire the extraordinary.
Andrea Saadan is the Senior Digital Editor of Tatler Singapore. She oversees all digital content for the website and currently leads the Beauty and Lifestyle verticals. As a child, she had always enjoyed reading and writing but it was only after she joined her college newspaper, The Spectrum, in Buffalo, New York, that she considered a career in journalism. Her love for all things beauty started from the age of two—when she was caught playing with (and damaging) her mother’s YSL lipstick. On top of her day job, she is also an unpaid beauty consultant for friends and family. Besides make-up, her obsessions include the wizarding world of Harry Potter, podcasts, ice-cream, her walking pad and watching endless re-runs of The Office (US).
