Majestic Beauty: Cartier’s powerful Panthère de Cartier icon

For over a century, the panther has proven to be a creative and endless source of inspiration, exuding its power, freedom and defiance to define Cartier’s treasure trove of jewellery designs, watchmaking, ne leather goods, home accessories, eyewear and high perfumery.

Graduating from an abstraction to a figurative expression, the indomitable animal has been continuously reinvented over the years into a vast array of iterations including naturalist, sculptural and graphic renditions—always injected with a sense of life and movement through inventive design and unparalleled craftsmanship.

This September, the Into The Wild exhibition brings Panthère de Cartier to life, displaying creations of diverse stylistic forms throughout its evolution alongside its muse of inspiration and savoir faire.

Cartier is also unveiling a new interpretation: a capsule of fully articulated sculptural Panthère de Cartier jewellery creations. Boasting remarkable suppleness, the Panthère necklaces and bracelets aunt powerful volumes that unfold without a hinge in sight, courtesy of an invisible system developed by the Maison.

To achieve this exible composition, two different components are crossed with two gold blades linked to two springs positioned in the heads of the panthers. is exemplary craftsmanship technique enables the resplendent jewellery pieces, with its clean lines and essential design, to curve intimately around the body when worn.

This new Panthère jewellery design features two iterations—one in yellow gold marked with octagonal black lacquer spots, and the other in white gold paved with diamonds and set with onyx spots. The long, curved design stems from two heads of sculptural panthers punctuated with emerald or tsavorite garnet eyes.

So as not to disrupt the distribution of the animal’s spots, the jewellery setter skilfully encircles each stone with small metal grains to secure it for the versions set with diamonds. Next, the Cartier “fur” setting is employed where refined cuts are made around the onyx to evoke the animal’s silky coat.

For more than a hundred years, Cartier has religiously cultivated this attitude of rebellious sophistication in its jewellery ingenuity across the Panthère de Cartier repertoire—inspired by the animal’s strength and allure which is in turn inherited from the emancipated visionary and former Cartier Creative Director, Jeanne Toussaint.

From jewellery design, the panther makes its indelible presence felt in Cartier’s watchmaking universe where the Panthère de Cartier collection, launched in 1983, is the Maison’s quintessential jewellery watch, defined by a square silhouette with rounded corners, seamlessly curvaceous horns and visible rivets.

Taking its name from the feminine bracelet—formed from a series of curved and polished links—the ultra-flexible structure that fits elegantly and naturally around the wrist mirrors the animal’s smooth and slinky movements. A bold relaunch in 2017 saw this emblematic collection being refreshed with a 14-piece line-up including a pixelated version; in 2018, it stunned with sensual double and triple-loop bracelets; and in 2019, the mini and cu variants took its striking design to the next level.

At the 2022 Watches and Wonders, the radiant and best-selling Panthère de Cartier design is rejuvenated by four new versions in rose gold, yellow gold and steel, along with four different coloured satin dials including golden plum, midnight blue and black.

Thee diagonally crossed dials are a brilliant display of iridescent and subtle gradations in the interplay with light, lending a precious luminosity that elevates the jewel-like quality of the most feline watch in the Maison’s annals.

Furthermore in 2022, the Maison des Métiers d’Art also references the eternal panther idol and mined its creative potential for the Ronde Louis Cartier Gold Enamel Fragments and Gold Beads and Ronde Louis Cartier Sparkling Panthère Marquetry watches.

The sensual beast is also enlisted in the spectacularly graphic Indomptables de Cartier jewellery and watchmaking collection, a hybrid and out-of-the-box portrayal of unexpected encounters between animals of the Cartier menagerie.

Cartier invites you on a sensuous Into The Wild experience staged at Workshop 3, Sentul Depot from September 4 to 18. Register online here.

intothewild.cartier.my