From the magazine

Cartier used to be a Timpson’s for the rich

Apart from the staggering banque-busting biggies, they, almost uniquely, made the most exquisite smaller things – including a ribbed platinum straw for the discreet hit

Nicky Haslam
Cartier’s Panthère brooch, 1989 (C) VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM
EXPLORE THE ISSUE 19 April 2025
issue 19 April 2025

In the fall of, I suppose, 1962, my friend Jimmy Davison and I, window shopping on Fifth Avenue, bumped into the glamorous Venezuelan playboy-grandee Reinaldo Herrera. Jimmy asked where he was going. ‘I’m just nipping into Cartier. They’re fixing my skis,’ Reinaldo replied. Autres temps, autre moeurs. I doubt anyone today uses the world’s most famous jewellers as their local Timpson’s, though I suspect Cartier’s unrivalled in-house craftsmen could still run up a supple sapphire USB cable if requested.

I doubt anyone today uses the world’s most famous jewellers as their local Timpson’s

Because that was partly the firm’s point.

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