What happened at our Cartier Collectors’ Rendezvous
Andrew McUtchenThe Cartier Collectors’ Rendezvous is a relatively new development, where Cartier uses the occasion of Watches and Wonders as an opportunity to not only involve their most loyal and learned collectors, but also to let them in on the experience of the world’s largest watch fair in a really intimate, exclusive, and privileged way.
It isn’t just “here’s the new watches on a red velvet tray.” It’s a chance to get inside the design process, to index opinions off other collectors, and to get a sense of the historical context around the pieces. This year, I was privileged to moderate the discussion. As a newly minted, Cartier-curious customer-turned-budding collector (you may have followed my journey to my first Tank Louis Cartier from About Effing Time, to a recent panel chat with Tim Green, Justin Hast, and our very own Russell Sheldrake) – the honour was not lost on me!
Joining me as a co-host was Cartier’s Image, Style and Heritage Director Pierre Rainero. To my left for the conversation was a senior Cartier designer who worked on the 2025 collection. So, you put these two incredible people together with the new timepieces, and you have this quite surreal experience of being not only led into the Cartier space, but then into a boardroom within the belly of the booth that is not for public access to congregate with some of the world’s best known Cartier collectors. Pairing the historical context set by Pierre with design insights from the collections’ actual designers set the scene for some very colourful storytelling.
Add all those things up, and it’s pretty much a Cartier collector’s dream; a chance for guests to be with “their people”, and to really have some illumination around the new collection from several sources of light. I just can’t imagine anything being as effective as those two hosts, one whose fingerprints are literally on the designs before us on the table.
I suppose my role in that mix was just to moderate and facilitate, and to make sure that everyone in the room had a voice. I was there to create space for guests to be able to ask questions and share their stories. In fact, the first thing that happened when we all sat down was that Pierre produced a picture of a monument at the entrance to the 1925 Exhibition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Arts in Paris. It had the precise shape of a Tank watch, with the brancards extending down each side of rectangle, slightly exceeding its extent at both ends. “This looks like a Tank, and it looks like a door”, Pierre opened, “so let’s begin by sharing which ‘door’ we each came in through to end up here, at a Cartier Collectors’ Rendezvous!”
What a question to break the ice with this room of legendary collectors! Some of the names included Italian legend Auro Montanari, American super collector Eric Ku, as well as a fresh-faced young Spanish collector by the name of Carlos Ortiz. Despite the shadow cast by many of the names, their anecdotes were touching, personal, and relatable. As I mentioned, I am outwardly a new Cartier convert, in the sense that I’ve always known and been curious about the brand, but only recently have I started to realise the slipperiness of the slope. Only recently have I felt its unique draw as a brand. But I can tell you that draw is strong, and even stronger after an experience like this.
The guest that I brought to the table was Head of Commercial of secondary marketplace Subdial, Tim Green. Tim talks about the Tank and about Cartier with such conviction, and with a diametric contempt for other brands in comparison, that I just had to have him there. In the recent video we did with Russell and Justin, talking about a two-watch collection, he was quite declarative about Cartier’s essential place in his pair, and he was utterly full of contempt for any other choice, including mine. I found that really fascinating. People that are into Cartier are just so committed and almost cult-like in their passion.
Naturally, the calibre of Cartier watches worn by guests was beyond elite. You were almost on the outer if you were not wearing a Cartier NSO, which stands for “new special order”, a now rumoured-to-be-retired program that involved people ordering bespoke pieces. Looking around, I would say the most common watch in the room was the Crash, but super rare models such as a vintage (non-CPCP) Tank à Guichets (of which barely 400 models were ever produced) and Tank Normale examples were present.
The single unifying idea of the Tank that will never leave me is that it has this duality. There are two sides to the Tank coin. It has this exclusivity element, grounded in the fact that roughly (and only) a hundred Tank watches were produced per year from 1917 to the launch of the Must de Cartier in 1977… And then, after the Must de Cartier, there is this ubiquity – a veritable explosion of production and of notoriety.
But somehow, despite the increase in access, there is no dilution of its brand power. The Tank remains a towering icon in watchmaking and, unusually, it completely crosses the gender divide. It is as much an icon for men as it is for women. I contend that there’s no other watch like that, really, in the sense that while it is, on the one hand, ubiquitous, unavoidable, it has also been (and remains) actually super, super rare and collectible for nearly 70% of its life.
We were able to peruse extraordinary examples from the brand’s collection to illustrate this point, and the various themes of the Tank – its change in proportions over time, its playfulness, and its various collectable shapes too. We concluded the session with some really detailed questions around the new pieces: Why were the brancards removed on the Tank à Guichets? Why was the bevel framing the aperture for the hours and minutes hand-polished instead of machine-polished? Why were the numbers colour-matched to the strap?
Co-hosting this special event for Cartier collectors granted me an insight into the way collectors’ minds work. It seems to me that they are forever reconciling the new with the old. The classic with the contemporary. I learned that, for a collector, there’s so much respect and almost reverence for the original article, and there simply can’t be too much adjustment away from whatever the essential element of that vintage example is.
And the thing that most excited me about the 2025 Cartier collections’ response from this very learned cohort is that they were super, super happy. They were just really, visibly excited by the vintage fidelity as well as the contemporary twists. Like the oblique angle of the hour aperture on the platinum Tank à Guichets, and the blood red numerals that reference the ruby cabochon that is missing due to the crown position at 12.
Another big insight was that the collectors were just super impressed, and, yes, I’m going to say it; they were turned on by one thing in particular. They were hugely turned on by the slimness of the collection overall.
It really drew attention to the fact that the CPCP Tank à Guichets models in their last example were on the thick side and had some elements that were a little gauche, a little clunky – like screws in the case sides for example. So, technology has come to the fore, along with fidelity to original designs. It led to these models being received so joyously, almost ecstatically. And that’s not overstating it. People were just elated by what they saw and what they held, and they had effusive praise for the designers. It was a vibe. All of that is just to say that if you’re wondering what the mood was in the Cartier collector camp, it was beyond a warm reception. It was hot in there. It was so good.
In closing, it has to be said that this – present company who was co-hosting excluded – was a perfectly designed collector experience. Despite my official capacity on the day, I joined the fray with the collector group and clamoured to order the pink gold Tank Louis Cartier Automatic in the heat of the moment. In the same way that Rolex holds the crown for creating the cover-all watchmaking package, I think Cartier is undeniably the top of the mountain when it comes to elegance as it pertains to watchmaking and watches.
And that elegance was just inexorably wrapped up with this whole experience, the way that it all transpired. The way everyone was dressed, and the cordiality of the way everyone interacted, it was just amazing. An amazing experience. I feel very privileged to have been chosen to facilitate that group and to do some filming with the brand that week as well. It was one of the highlights of my career in the watch industry.