Cartier’s image and heritage director, Pierre Rainero, talks us through the brand’s latest novelties and explains how the French house has maintained consistency over the years
In his role as Cartier’s image and heritage director, it’s fair to say that Pierre Rainero has got rather a tough act to follow. “When Louis Cartier came in as the head of the company at the very end of the 19th century, which we refer to really as the beginning of the ‘modern Cartier,’ he had the vision and ambition for a very specific style for the house,” Rainero explains.
“My role is to ensure that this is carried out consistently across all Cartier’s products. This is a huge responsibility which I don’t take lightly. Every decision I make, from approving (or disapproving) a new design to adding novelties to existing collections, is made in the name of keeping with the Cartier style.”
Rainero’s task is far from straightforward, especially when one considers the vast array of products in Cartier’s watch and jewellery collections. “We have numerous and very different creative expressions—for example, abstraction and figurative designs,” he says. “We also have pure shapes like the Tank, and more figurative and expressive shapes like the Roadster, a collection inspired by the car industry.”
Among this year’s new novelties, Rainero is particularly pleased with one timepiece in particular. “This year’s Santos Dumont is certainly something to be proud of,” he says. “It’s an exercise of restraint, elegance and creativity while being faithful to the original design.”
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And design is what the new Santos Dumont is all about. With steel, two-tone and full 18-karat rose-gold options to choose from, the square case and thin profile of the watch (it’s just 7mm thick) mean it looks elegant whichever material is used. The simple dial displays just hours and minutes in the classic Roman numeral format, with visible screws around the outside of the case. Crucially, the beaded winding crown is slightly bigger than in previous iterations of the watch, making time changes quick and painless.
Not that there’ll be much need for those, since the Santos Dumont is powered by a quartz calibre—a bone of contention for mechanical purists. However, this is not any old quartz movement. Cartier’s manufacture in La Chaux-de-Fonds has tinkered with it to reduce its energy consumption, and when combined with a new high-performance battery, it means the movement has an autonomy of approximately six years—twice as long as a standard quartz calibre.
The Santos Dumont isn’t the only new novelty that Rainero is pleased with. He also takes great pride in Cartier’s new Privé Tonneau collection. “How we conceived the movement based on the shape of the case is a testament to the kind of work we do in watchmaking, where everything is done in the name of aesthetics,” he says of the watches’ distinctive barrel-shaped case.