captive

Cartier Captive Watch Collection Hands-On

It is true that most of the watches I played with at SIHH 2010 were men's watches, but a few stunning women's watches did not evade my grasp. New from Cartier, here are some of their Captive collection watches. The timepieces come in at least two sizes. One is 35mm wide and the largest is about 52mm wide! Wow. One of the images in the gallery below is of it on my wrist just to show you how large it is. The collection comes in either white or rose gold and with various amount of diamonds (full pave anyone?).

To me the chain link style of the watch was a bit kinky. Cartier didn't see this, but couldn't disagree that this might be an additional attraction point to the watch. They see it as "captivating her," I see it as "a really good way to keep her captive." Your own interpretation is welcome. The smaller version makes with just one blued steel hand (for the hours - you can tell the time to withing about 10 minute precision), while the larger version as two hands. The watch faces themselves are small of course in comparison to the rest of the watches. All in all the collection is pretty nice and unique for Cartier. See a bit more detail in a previous article on the Captive collection here. Prices are about $22,100-$96,500.

Ariel Adams publishes the luxury watch review site aBlogtoRead.com.

Gallery: Cartier Captive watches

Tags: 2010, captive, cartier, diamonds, sihh, watch

Cartier Captive Women's Watch

by Ariel Adams (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Timepieces / Watches

While I rarely say this about Cartier items, this is a weird watch. That doesn't meant I don't like it, but rather that it is extremely avant garde. More so that I would expect from the brand. Torn apart, it is in fact easily placed among Cartier's ranks of highly exclusive haute joaillerie timepieces, but taken at a glance, this is something "different."

The watch is in 18k carat white gold, that interestingly has been rhodium plated. The case is 35mm wide (which Cartier considers large) with a bezel set with many diamonds that continues on to the dial as the hour markers. The watch face is actually quite tiny - with the hands being readable if you look closely. The dial is more art than watch. The elongated hour markers seem to burst in a sunray pattern. The upper lug extends into the face like part of a chain link. Chains hold things together - so perhaps that is how they came up with the "Captive" name.

Cartier gives the watch a canvas gray strap with a matching white gold strap. The watch is curved and comes with a sapphire crystal. Inside the watch is a Swiss quartz movement. A lovely little - and likely highly expensive - model.

Ariel Adams publishes the luxury watch review site aBlogtoRead.com.

Tags: Captive, Cartier, haute, joaillerie, watch