Cartier Clé De Cartier Watch Unlocks New Market For The French Maison

Cartier didn’t play it safe with its tunrkey watch. In fact, the French Maison created a major surprise at SIHH 2015, when it unveiled the Clé De Cartier, a brand new collection featuring a new shape and movement. But best of all, it’s available in the same price range as the iconic Tank and Santos collections.

The Clé De Cartier gets its name from the model’s turnkey device, used to reset the time and date. Whilst the gesture would have been commonplace in the 20th century to reset large clocks, it’s mostly disappeared with the miniaturisation of movements made for wristwatches.

Using some out-of-the-box thinking to hide the “key,” the Maison known for its elegant lines elongated the shape of the crown to integrate it seamlessly into the rounded, or ovoid, case of the watch.

The Clé De Cartier features a beautiful guilloché core, surrounded by a pearl-white outer rim while blue hands and matching Roman numerals add character to the dial. Meanwhile, a date aperture at 6 o’clock brings some balance to the overall design.

Cartier has developed, produced and assembled a brand new movement for the Clé De Cartier. Its name — 1847 MC — pays homage to the year of the Maison’s Creation (MC) by Louis-François Cartier. Featuring an automatic mechanism with dual-direction winding, the robust Caliber 1847MC boasts a 42-hour power reserve.

The Clé De Cartier collection comes in various sizes with 22 models available for men and women. The model we were shown during SIHH 2015 is a woman’s Clé De Cartier 35 mm presented in an 18K white gold set with pavé diamond bezel, priced at $41,300. The much-anticipated Clé De Cartier hits stores all around the world tomorrow morning.

Photo Credit: Haute Time. Follow Haute Time on Instagram to experience Baselworld 2015 in real-time and catch all of the new releases as they happen.