Cartier – The First Lady’s Watch
What’s in a watch? Luxury brands have long been used to judge and compare people’s taste and sophistication. And that’s a use they will continue to have long into the future. Watch brands actively encourage this comparison, employing celebrities to promote their watches and wear them to press-filled events. And just as different brands appeal to different people, different celebrities are sought out by brands to promote different images. Cindy Crawford and George Clooney are brand ambassadors for Omega, Lewis Hamilton for Tag, Roger Federer for Rolex. Magazines across the world are filled with adverts associating glamorous high profile individuals with watch brands.
Take Cartier, for example. Their watches and jewellery are elegant and sophisticated, but celebrities nowadays are harder to place in that role, flitting through fashions and falling in and out of favour with the public eye. Can you think of a celebrity associated with Cartier? Probably not. Their lasting popularity remains down to the constant, subtler exposure they gain from chance placements, such as Michelle Obama’s decision to wear their Tank Francaise for her official White House portrait. They didn’t know she was going to wear it; she chose to herself because a Cartier watch best symbolises her, and the image she wants to present. Coincidentally – or perhaps not – the First Lady she has been most compared to, Jackie Kennedy, also wore a Cartier in 1969. This is a brand that has a long history of producing high-end jewellery as well as watches, and is a name synonymous with style and class.
The watch worn by Michelle Obama on this occasion was subtle for a Cartier, a Stainless Steel Tank Francaise in steel, without the diamonds or gold that adorn many of the models in that collection. It is glamorous, but not too frivolous for a President’s wife who has pledged to continue working on behalf of military and working families. The watch that Jackie Kennedy wore was the Tank Louis Cartier, a fitting watch for a woman renown for her style and grace. Almost unchanged, the model is still being sold 40 years on. The fleeting fashions that race by do not affect the glamour of the great and glorious.
This is Cartier’s greatest asset. A Cartier watch will still look just as good half a century from now as it does today. Like all the true masters of watch making, they have found a look that doesn’t age, and that’s what makes them appeal not only to the likes of politicians and royalty, who have been Cartier’s customers for generations, but to modern investors.