Cartier Libre collection stretches the rules of design to battle smart watches

While wrist art, mostly of the mechanical kind, features in the catalogues of brands old and new, it's the venerable maisons of style that tend to have the firmest grip on visual allure, Cartier being a prime example The following year Cartier began buying back watches from overstocked Asian retailers, a measure that accounted for a reported $445 million worth of timepieces in 2017 It's led to the quiet demise of Cartier's decade-old Fine Watchmaking operation and a fresh emphasis on the lines that have traditionally been the brand's strength: the venerable Santos, Tank, and the more recent Panthère and Ballon Bleu.

No matter how finely revised and updated, no brand can rely on vintage laurels alone; it needs heroes to cut through and wave the flag, to maintain and build broader brand relevance In Cartier's case, for 2019 it's offering not only upgrades for the more everyday ranges, but looking to its artistic authority with an adventurous Cartier Libre collection Of the four models making up the collection - two Baignoire Allongée timepieces, a Tank Chinoise Red Watch and a Diagonale - it's the latter that best exemplifies what the brand describes as its "Wealth of information in terms of form".

While Cartier will no doubt quickly sell all 50 Diagonales on offer, maybe there's a broader lesson here: that once the watch is no longer an ornament, it's likely to have no future. . Source