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Watches and Wonders 2021: Cartier libre

Every year, the Cartier Libre collection explores the Maison’s repertoire of signature-shaped watches. A candid look that revisits and shakes up codes, revealing the wealth of inspiration found in Cartier’s watchmaking repertoire of shapes through unique creations. For this third opus of the Cartier Libre collection, the Studio designers have chosen to combine signature shapes from the Cartier watchmaking repertoire with iconic animals from the Maison’s menagerie. Baignoire/Tortue, Tortue/Serpent: a duo of precious watches is thus born, unexpected and enhanced encounters are interpreted though extravagant and highly jewelled creations.

Behind the excessive shapes lies meticulous design. Purity of the line, precise proportions and precious details, Cartier’s unique vision of design is expressed through these watches, questioning the established order of things and making watchmaking and jewellery shine with the same radiance in a twist of madness and freedom.

Cartier libre Baignoire Turtle 

Cartier Libre has taken the aesthetic heritage of the Baignoire released in 2019 and revisits the entire dial to give it a new identity. A Baignoire watch that takes inspiration from a tortoise, a signature Cartier creation that frees itself from formal wisdom in order to transform. Using materials that evoke a shell, Cartier contrasts the smoothness of buff-top stones with the graininess of diamond paving to reveal an animal: a tortoise.

The watch displays its aptitude for transformation: a dial with random diamond paving, playful anthracite and black lines, a geometric composition with a scale motif, a case lined with a stripe of buff-top tsavorites, buff-topped sapphires inside the dial and on the corners of three central hexagons.

Cartier libre Tortue Snake 

Created in 1912, the Tortue watch is the result of intense research on pared-down simplicity. A fixed idea at Cartier that gives rise to this model with its unique shape and a case constructed around two large curves.

This new Cartier Libre edition brings this watchmaking classic to life with a refreshing change of scenery. Adorned here with scale motifs, ringed curves that glide along a light background of bluish or light grey shades. Represented through a multitude of details and playful materials, the serpent is both present and subtly suggested.

In details, the watch offers black or coral-coloured enamel, mother-of-pearl with water tones, all brightened by drops of polished gold and closed-set diamonds on the case and the winding crown.