FRIDAY WIND DOWN: The vintage Cartier craze and how to wear your watch (very) stylishly
Nick KenyonIs Cartier having a moment, or is the momentum here to stay? I recently had the chance to speak with a few Cartier collectors and experts on the recent uptick that vintage watches are seeing at auction, which shed some light on why Cartier and why now.
While prices of many different vintage Cartier models have been inching up over the last year or so, the line-in-the-sand moment came when a Cartier Pebble was sold by Phillips in May for CHF403,200 against an estimate of CHF50,000 – 100,000.
Was it an expensive flash in the pan, or a sign of things to come? We found out on Wednesday when another Cartier Pebble that had come up for sale through Bonhams in London sold for £225,250 against a bullish estimate of £150,000 – £200,000. As any data scientist will tell you, once is a potential aberration, but twice is a possible trend.
But while any real data scientist worth their salt would never actually say that, vintage Cartier is definitely making a move. Why? I think Cartier collector Roni Madhvani (@roni_m_29 on Instagram) had an interesting insight when he suggested the reason that collectors were turning their attention to Cartier stemmed from “the increasing difficulty of obtaining fodder for the steel sports watch herd [and] an awakening to the beauty of design in timepieces through the rise of social media.”
In further evidence of vintage Cartier penetrating popular culture, yesterday rapper Tyler The Creator was spotted wearing a Cartier Crash in his latest music video, joining Kanye West as another multi-disciplinary creative to appreciate the brand. As a huge Cartier fan, I for one am very excited that the boldly creative designs of the early 20th century are finally being appreciated and will be watching closely to see where things go from here.
Have a great weekend,
Nick
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