Cartier

Cartier is a French luxury house headquartered in Paris that makes jewelry, watches, leather goods and eyewear. Louis-François Cartier founded it in Paris in 1847, and it stayed under family control until 1964. It is now a subsidiary of the Swiss Richemont Group and operates more than 200 stores.

Two of Cartier's watch lines date to the early wristwatch era. The Santos began around 1904, when Louis Cartier designed a flat wristwatch with a square bezel for the aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont, who found pocket watches impractical while flying; it was Cartier's first men's wristwatch. The Tank, also designed by Louis Cartier, followed in 1919 and took its shape from the tanks of the Western Front.