Cartier's gender neutral approach to watchmaking

PIERRE Rainero wants to discuss "the style of masculine Cartier watchmaking", but he's not referring to making timepieces for men. Rather, the luxury brand's director of style and patrimony wants to talk about why men don't get it - that is, while Cartier sells more watches to women, the design of the time pieces are meant to be gender neutral. He traces it back to Cartier's original design ethos, which "concentrates so much on original and different shapes that they could be interesting for both men and women - that's the way we create our watches," he says, explaining why Cartier doesn't make watches specifically for men or women.

In fact, even though the Santos de Cartier - arguably the first wrist-watch made - was created in 1904 as a men's watch for the Brazilian aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont, Mr Rainero says it was offered to both sexes when the timepiece was "commercialised" in 1911.

While beauty according to Cartier is gender neutral, men are sometimes a little too inhibited to fully embrace the kind of elegance that the brand is known for, says Mr Rainero.