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But the question lingered: Was the expertise really Cartier’s or was it Dubuis behind a Ballon Bleu facade? Two years later, it’s clear that it really was Cartier. Voilà: Paris-based Cartier, with watch production facilities in La Chaux-de-Fonds and Fribourg, Switzerland, was transformed into a Geneva Seal brand. The flying-tourbillon caliber they produced there, the 9452 MC, is based on a Roger Dubuis design. Cartier promptly took over an atelier in the Dubuis facility and installed 10 master watchmakers there. In 2007, Cartier’s parent company, Richemont SA, acquired the production facilities of Manufacture Roger Dubuis in Geneva, which specialized in making Geneva Seal movements. ( Omega and Cartier both claim to be number two.) However, famously French Cartier had no tradition of making mechanical movements in-house and no watch manufacturing roots whatsoever in the canton of Geneva, which is a key requirement to earn the allegedly prestigious Poinçon de Genève. At the time, some watch industry observers (including this reporter) considered it a stunt.Cartier is a genuine watch power it is either the second- or third-best-selling Swiss watch brand in the world after Rolex. In April 2008, Cartier startled the watch world with the introduction of its first ever Geneva Seal watch, the Ballon Bleu Flying Tourbillon.

In this full-length feature WatchTime’s Joe Thompson explores the intriguing origins and bold future initiatives of Manufacture Cartier. In recent years Cartier, the king of haute joaillerie, has begun storming the bastions of haute horlogerie.