The Cartiers Hodinkee Review

Something for the watch lovers now. This picture features in a just-out Hodinkee review of #thecartiers by Jack Forster. For those who don’t know it, Hodinkee is THE leading watch website/magazine/blog, and Jack Forster is its brilliant editor-in-chief (and author of Cartier Time Art, one of the best Cartier watch books out there). All of which goes to explain why I was so pleased to see my book not only featured on their front-page, but also reviewed in a way that really grasps the essence of what I was trying to achieve: “What is often missed” Jack writes when talking about Cartier pieces, “are the stories of the people behind the creations, which in many cases have been with us so long as to seem to have appeared through some process of spontaneous generation…”.

That’s what my grandfather Jean-Jacques Cartier felt too, and a promise I made to him to bring to life those behind the scenes of the family firm was a key motivation for the book. Take the many skilled hands involved in creating a single #vintagewatch: the hours, days and weeks to fashion a gold case at the bench, to make the dial from a sheet of silver, to print on the numbers without it smudging, to cut out the hour and minute hands, and to miraculously assemble the component parts of not just a reliable timepiece but also a miniature work of art.

Because #creativity, as Jack succinctly points out, “cannot be bought by the kilogram from a supplier” (so true) and the growth of luxury didn’t just happen by magic: “Cartier was one of those firms that really invented luxury as we have come to know it today, and to read The Cartiers is not only to find oneself immersed in the genuinely gripping story of a business and creative dynasty, but also in the larger history of luxury.”