Inside The Art House

For a look at Cartier’s commitment to artisanal crafts, just look at its Maison des Métiers d’Art and the techniques it has pioneered.

- Jamie Tan

Metiers d’art watches demand specific savoir-faire such as guillochage or micro-painting, which often fall outside the usual purview of watchmaking. To produce such watches, some brands choose to partner with external craftspeople, who provide the expertise necessary to bring a particular design to fruition. It’s an elegant (and convenient) solution, because these watches tend to have limited runs anyway, so the brand is free to pursue new projects once its current ones end.

Cartier, on the other hand, decided to bring such savoir-faire under its roof – literally – when it established its Maison des Métiers d’Art in La Chaux-de-Fonds. such integration echoes its efforts elsewhere within the manufacture, which now boasts six facilities across switzerland with capabilities such as vintage clock and watch restoration, hand production, and the manufacture of watch crystals with exotic shapes. Consolidating a range of metiers into a single space doesn’t just allow a brand to reap the typical advantages of having “in-house” expertise, like shorter product development cycles. As Cartier has shown, when such know-how reaches a critical mass, it becomes possible to push the boundaries and either create new artisanal techniques and crafts, or adapt existing ones specifically to the context of watches.

PAINTING WITH FIRE 

The latest metiers d’art technique that Cartier has developed is flamed gold, which combines elements of engraving and heat treatment. These are applied to an 18K white gold alloy that Cartier developed with its external supplier; the alloy’s unusually high iron content allows its surface to oxidise and take on different colours when heated to different temperatures, much like how steel watch hands are blued by heating.