Cartier is Gen Z’s Rolex, thanks to Taylor Swift

When Taylor Swift announced her engagement to Travis Kelce, it wasn’t just the huge diamond ring that sent fans into a frenzy. For watch enthusiasts, it was the rare gold and diamond Cartier timepiece she was wearing.

The superstar sporting the discontinued Santos Demoiselle cemented the brand as Gen Z’s most wanted, upending the watch market in the process. Cartier is at the forefront of a shift to smaller, dressier models, disrupting the decade-long dominance of chunky sports watches, and helping its owner, luxury conglomerate Cie Financiere Richemont SA outperform the industry’s biggest names, including Rolex, this year.

To trace the popularity of Cartier, we need to look to another celebrity: Kim Kardashian. Around a decade ago, the Kardashian sisters began showing off Cartier’s Love bracelets.

As affluent young women were stacking the bangles on their wrists, Cyrille Vigneron, Cartier’s chief executive officer from 2016 until last year, was transforming the storied house. He moved away from complicated timepieces, and instead focused on Cartier’s heritage of more unusual shaped yet expertly crafted models.

The masterstroke came in 2017, when he relaunched the Panthere. The campaign film, shot by Sofia Coppola, featuring a young woman in Los Angeles and set to the pulsating beat of Donna Summer’s I Feel Love, tapped into the Gen Z zeitgeist. As part of the refresh, Cartier invited customers with existing Pantheres to bring them back, to be repaired for free, with a two-year warranty. Many women fixed watches that had been languishing unworn, and gave them to their daughters or granddaughters, creating a new generation of fans.

Vigneron didn’t stop at the Panthere. A year later, he relaunched the Santos De Cartier with a campaign featuring Jake Gyllenhaal and continued to reimagine other iconic lines, such as the Tank and Baignoire, extending some ranges into mini-watches.

The changing nature of luxury has also contributed to Cartier’s success. As the price of handbags has skyrocketed, consumers, particularly younger buyers, have turned to jewellery. One of Richemont’s strengths across its jewellery businesses, which also includes Van Cleef & Arpels, is maintaining entry level prices, and this carries over to watches. A mini steel Panthere is available for about £3,500 ($4,600), roughly the same as many handbags. Cartier watches are also widely available, although there are waiting lists for some models. Those encrusted with diamonds, as favoured by Swift, are particularly popular.

All this has put Cartier at the top of Gen Z’s wish list. Young buyers are shifting from bulky, mostly steel sports watches, led by Rolex, to smaller, predominantly gold models. The styles are being worn not only by women- some of whom are stacking them like bracelets- but also men, such as Cartier ambassador Timothee Chalamet. The brand doesn’t segment its watches by gender, but about 55% of its sales are to men, and 45% to women, estimates industry adviser LuxeConsult.

According to watch-trading platform Chrono24, Cartier’s share of money spent by Gen Z customers on its site jumped to 6.8% in the first half of this year, from 1.7% in 2018. Cartier’s share among all age groups has risen to 5.4% currently from 2.9% in 2018.

Second-hand prices for Cartier watches rose 10% between March and October, according to Subdial. The UK-based trading platform is regularly asked to source Pantheres, in a way it was not two to three years ago, perhaps reflecting their popularity with influencers and on TikTok.

But growth is even more impressive for new models. Cartier is part of Richemont’s jewellery division, so it does not disclose the brand’s watch performance. But Vontobel Equity Research estimates that Cartier watch sales rose 15% from January to September. This is ahead of Rolex, estimated to have increased sales by a high single-digits percentage, and the broader Swiss watch industry, where sales declined.

Cartier watch sales could reach €3.6 billion ($4.2 billion) this year, analysts at Morgan Stanley estimate, overtaking Richemont’s other watchmakers for the first time in 20 years.

The brand is expected to produce 715,000 watches this year, far less than Rolex’s 1.2 million, according to Vontobel. So, there’s plenty to go for, particularly among Chinese consumers, for whom Cartier is increasingly resonating.

But secondary prices have slipped over the past month, while Chrono24 has seen a slight dip in demand for dress watches in Asia and North America. Some young US consumers are under pressure from inflation, rising student loan repayments, and a weaker jobs market.

Rivals have noticed Cartier’s success. Rolex released a new dress watch collection, the 1908, two years ago. In its steel models, it’s experimenting with playful coloured dials, such as pistachio and lavender, including in smaller sizes. Rolex discontinued the 26mm Lady Datejust in 2015, as watches super-sized. But this model, which has the same old money vibe as the Panthere, is popping up on TikTok, and changing hands at higher prices. Reissuing it would be a smart way for Rolex to compete.

Richemont has a rich heritage within Cartier, which its new CEO Louis Ferla can continue to exploit. There are also models within the company’s watchmakers that could pick up any slack. Jaeger-LeCoultre has relaunched the Reverso, which works equally well for men and women, while Piaget has introduced the asymmetric Sixtie.

But of course, the coup would be bringing back the Santos Demoiselle. Watchmakers rarely give clues about their future plans, but what better way to keep Cartier’s momentum going than transforming the “Taylor Swift Cartier” into TikTok’s next It-girl watch?