Cartier caliber 690 sets this timepiece apart with precision

There is a word that is thrown around a lot in the watch world that means the public takes a watch (or anything else for that matter) seriously. That word is legitimacy and I love to hear the French pronounce it. Cartier is what they call a legitimate brand. They have heaps of reputation, a solid history and plenty of important people who wear their products. Classic Cartier designs are also a great influence to their direct competitors. They really are the model of a solid luxury watch brand.

A few years ago, Cartier decided that this was not enough. They wanted even more legitimacy, especially with the growing population of seasoned watch lovers. This meant adding a lot more high-end watches to their range, as well as offering in-house made movements. Well, sometimes "in-house" just meant no one else was using those movements but that's another matter altogether. I also suspect this push to make movements was partly due to ETA's (Swatch Group owned while Cartier is Richemont) continual threats to stop supplying movements to outside brands. ETA hasn't done this yet but Cartier was smart to invest in movement manufacturing in the event that it does happen.

The first watches to contain in-house Cartier movements were very high-end. Cartier offered a brand new look and feel to the type of watch that could bear the Cartier name. All these watches had exotic movements and prices were on par with that of some very nice real estate. In 2010 Cartier announced the release of the simply named Calibre, a story that I covered here. The new masculine watch offered a sporty look (more so than Cartier's other sport watches such as the Pasha, Santos, and Roadster) as well as, for the first time, an "entry-level" Cartier with an in-house movement.