Watches And Wonders 2024: Reflection de Cartier Transcends Boundaries

In the quiet contemplation before the mirror, a profound realization emerges: your reflection speaks volumes about the journey you've traversed through time. Your reflection is not merely a visual representation but a testament to the resilience, growth, and wisdom gained along the way—a timeless narrative woven into the fabric of your being, waiting to be explored and embraced with reverence. This year at Watches & Wonders 2024 Cartier continues its exploration of time with the Reflection de Cartier watch collection. Following the Clash [Un]limited and Coussin de Cartier watches, this new timepiece embodies the brand's motto: transcribing the mysteries of time through bold creations.

The result of Cartier's work on shapes, this watch combines the savoir-faire of its watchmakers and jewelers. It starts with the open bracelet's unprecedented generous architecture, blending openwork and polished reflective gold with elongated lines and defined edges. Tension culminates as the delicate dial meets its reflection, where time appears to move backwards. The gem-like bevelled glass marks the piece's double identity, equal in sophistication and precision. The Reflection de Cartier comes in yellow, rose, and diamond-set white gold options, along with two white gold variations adorned with colored stones. It beautifully blends fullness and emptiness, angularity, and curvature, creating a harmonious balance.

“Reflection is a veritable sculpture to wear on the wrist – like a skeletonised chain-link  

that must be ‘broken’ to discover the time. Disruption is woven throughout: different sections interrupt the visual rhythm and flow, and a variety of angles and faces break up its roundness. It tempts disorientation by playing with reflections, playing with architecture, and continuing to defy categorisation: neither a watch nor a jewel but an entirely new kind of Cartier creation”, says Marie-Laure Cérède - Cartier’s Jewellery and Watchmaking Creative Director

The white gold models experiment with different paving combinations, including the Snow setting and the inverted setting favored by Jeanne Toussaint for their tactile and visual allure. By incorporating vibrant colored stones, Cartier ventures beyond traditional High Jewelry, exploring chromatic harmony and sensuality, and delving into the enigmatic nature of time through color, light, and the senses. Inspired by this vision, two new creations celebrate Cartier's artistry. The first pays homage to Louis Cartier's peacock motif with blue, green chrysoprasus, obsidian, emeralds, Paraiba tourmalines and iridescent lacquer on chiselled gold. The second introduces an opal, amethyst, spessartite garnet and tiger's eye harmony.

The richness lies in the textures, subtle to the touch - the reverse setting's originality, the paving's graininess, the lacquer's smoothness and the openwork create contrasting rhythms to be discovered visually and tactilely. In the Reflection de Cartier, Cartier has crafted a timepiece that pushes creative boundaries while upholding the maison's heritage of artistry and watchmaking mastery. A true transcendence of time, material and form.