In April 2008, Cartier startled the watch world with the introduction of its first ever Geneva Seal watch, the Ballon Bleu Flying Tourbillon. At the time, some watch industry observers considered it a stunt.Cartier Replica Watches is a genuine watch power; it is either the second- or third-best-selling Swiss watch brand in the world after Rolex.However, famously French Cartier had no tradition of making mechanical movements in-house and no watch manufacturing roots whatsoever in the canton of Geneva, which is a key requirement to earn the allegedly prestigious Poinçon de Genève.
In 2007, Cartier’s parent company, Richemont SA, acquired the production facilities of Manufacture Roger Dubuis in Geneva, which specialized in making Geneva Seal movements. Cartier Replica promptly took over an atelier in the Dubuis facility and installed 10 master watchmakers there. The flying-tourbillon caliber they produced there, the 9452 MC, is based on a Roger Dubuis design. Voilà: Paris-based Cartier, with watch production facilities in La Chaux-de-Fonds and Fribourg, Switzerland, was transformed into a Geneva Seal brand. Technically it was legit. But the question lingered: Was the expertise really Cheap Cartier Replica or was it Dubuis behind a Ballon Bleu facade? Two years later, it’s clear that it really was Cartier. What some saw as a stunt was actually a shot, an opening salvo announcing Cartier’s emergence as a bona fide mechanical movement producer with serious ambitions in high horology.
What’s going on, according to top Cartier executives from Paris and La Chaux-de-Fonds, is a new chapter in the firm’s long, often illustrious watch history. Cartier execs acknowledge that Cheap Cartier today is more of a ladies’ line: it is the world’s top producer of jewelry watches. In the United States, for example, women’s models account for two-thirds of Cartier watch sales. Cartier execs also acknowledge that they are somewhat late to the luxury-mechanical-watch party and, at this point, don’t bring a lot of high-mech credibility with them. Nevertheless, they point out that their conversion to mechanical movement manufacturing is in keeping with Replica Watches identity as a maison (French for “house”) whose craftsmen and women historically produce its own luxury products, and with its heritage as a pioneer in men’s wristwatches with icons like the Santos and Tank.
As part of the reorganization, Cartier hired from outside and developed inside the talent it needed to make mechanical watches for its Fine Watchmaking collection. It built a movement development department around the highly respected French-born Forestier-Kasapi, who worked with Giulio Papi at Audemars Piguet Renaud & Papi before joining cartier replica watches swiss movement 10 years ago. She now oversees 20 people. Cartier’s R&D department has 12 engineers. For the last half of the last decade these people were nestled in their new ateliers in Manufacture Cartier engaged in a frenzy of mechanical watch activity, developing all at once Cartier’s first in-house automatic movement, a slew of new mechanical movements, and the ID One concept watch. The result is a series of new Cartier men’s watches notable for their design creativity and technical ingenuity.
Take the two watches containing Cartier’s first mechanical movements created and produced entirely in-house, the Santos 100 Skeleton and Rotonde de Cartier Central Chronograph, introduced last year. The Santos 100 Skeleton differs from other skeleton watches in that Forestier-Kasapi designed the movement to display the time. Her patented design shaped the movement’s bridges to form Roman numerals at the XII, III, VI and IX positions. cartier watch replica ballon bleu is square-shaped to fit the palladium Santos case. Another novelty is the fine-adjustment pointer designed in the shape of Cartier’s stylized “C.” Cartier designers use the “C” motif freely on various watch parts. Another example: Cartier’s new Calibre de Cartier Flying Tourbillon watch— one of two new Geneva Seal watches it introduced this year, bringing the total to five — has a C-shaped tourbillon carriage.
