Businessweek
Against Luxury Headwinds, Cartier Bets on the Past to Protect Its Future
Timepieces creation director Marie-Laure Cérède makes watches steeped in history that shoppers can also view as a long-term investment.
Illustration: Joel Penkman
To appreciate how deeply Marie-Laure Cérède understands the DNA of Cartier SA, the 173-year-old French luxury house where she directs the design and development of timepieces, one must first consider the watch on her wrist and the pen in her hand. The creation team she oversees designed the former, and their first drafts began with the latter.
“Of course, we have the traditional tools of designers and the modern ones—the software and the 3D printer,” Cérède says from her sun-dappled office in Paris’s 8th arrondissement on June 5. “But at first, the Cartier watch is drawn by hand.”