Cartier La Panthere Collection would not have happened if there was this amazing and unique person that was the creative mind behind this bespoke collection of unique masterpiece the one and only Jeanne Toussand. Without her the world of fine jewellery would have missed the opportunity to admire and love the reflection importance of women power and their strength that all sums up in her unique collection
CARTIER LA PANTHERE Jeanne Toussand, Creative Director
1930’s can be considered as one of the greatest and most important decades for Cartier, as it was the decade that the legendary Cartier La Panthere was born. In the 1930’s the innovative and powerful Cartier appointed as creative director Jeanne Toussant, the first woman to undertake such an important role and she gave to Cartier the legendary collection of the iconic animal jewelry. Jeanne Toussant and Panthere became the symbol of the liberated women and until today many strong and independent women wear jewelry of that collection as a symbol of their strength and power to overcome difficulties and move on in order to become better each day. Setting a strong example to the generations to come.
CARTIER JEANNE TOUSSAINT
CARTIER LA PANTHERE Inspiration
The inspiration for the collections she designed came from her love of Indian jewelry. She beautifully combined material and colors that no one else till that point had imagined to combine. A powerful collection of yellow gold, red, green and purple accompanied with amethyst, coral, topaz, sapphire and others. So powerful, so unique, so liberal, so bright but with an elegant and exclusive touch that she was the only one that she could capture.
CARTIER LA PANTHERE COLLECTION
Want to learn more about other important founders? Check out our article tabout Hans Wilsdorf, Rolex founder and learn more about how everything started.
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Vallée de Joux, Switzerland — Contributing Editor, high complications & independent watchmaking
Julien Favre learned the difference between good silence and bad silence before he was ten. Good silence was his grandfather at the bench in Le Sentier, loupe screwed into one eye, breathing shallow over a disassembled minute repeater. Bad silence was the moment a hairspring pinged off the peg-wood and disappeared into the floorboards. The family atelier — three generations of movement servicing for the maisons that carpet the Vallée de Joux — was never framed as a legacy Julien was expected to join. It simply was the house, the way weather is the house in a mountain valley.
He resisted it, predictably. He studied economics in Lausanne and spent two years in Geneva watch retail, selling the objects rather than opening them. What pulled him back was not sentiment but frustration: he found he could describe why a movement was beautiful far better than anyone selling it could, because he had seen its underside. He started writing — first a blog dissecting finishing under macro photography, then commissioned work for the trade press, then features that treated escapements the way music critics treat a fugue.
Julien now covers high complications, restoration, and the fragile economics of independent watchmaking for European and English-language titles. His reporting is unusually technical without being cold; he is as interested in the person hunched over the bench as in the tolerances they hold. He is skeptical of hype, allergic to press-release adjectives, and reliably the first to notice when a "revolutionary" caliber is a reworked ébauche.
He still returns to the family workshop each winter to service a single pocket watch on his grandfather's bench — a discipline, he says, that keeps his writing honest. A critic who cannot do the thing risks worshipping it. Byline version: Julien Favre is a contributing editor covering high complications and independent watchmaking. He grew up in a movement-servicing atelier in the Vallée de Joux and still works the family bench each winter
Vallée de Joux, Switzerland — Contributing Editor, high complications & independent watchmaking
Julien Favre learned the difference between good silence and bad silence before he was ten. Good silence was his grandfather at the bench in Le Sentier, loupe screwed into one eye, breathing shallow over a disassembled minute repeater. Bad silence was the moment a hairspring pinged off the peg-wood and disappeared into the floorboards. The family atelier — three generations of movement servicing for the maisons that carpet the Vallée de Joux — was never framed as a legacy Julien was expected to join. It simply was the house, the way weather is the house in a mountain valley.
He resisted it, predictably. He studied economics in Lausanne and spent two years in Geneva watch retail, selling the objects rather than opening them. What pulled him back was not sentiment but frustration: he found he could describe why a movement was beautiful far better than anyone selling it could, because he had seen its underside. He started writing — first a blog dissecting finishing under macro photography, then commissioned work for the trade press, then features that treated escapements the way music critics treat a fugue.
Julien now covers high complications, restoration, and the fragile economics of independent watchmaking for European and English-language titles. His reporting is unusually technical without being cold; he is as interested in the person hunched over the bench as in the tolerances they hold. He is skeptical of hype, allergic to press-release adjectives, and reliably the first to notice when a "revolutionary" caliber is a reworked ébauche.
He still returns to the family workshop each winter to service a single pocket watch on his grandfather's bench — a discipline, he says, that keeps his writing honest. A critic who cannot do the thing risks worshipping it.
Byline version: Julien Favre is a contributing editor covering high complications and independent watchmaking. He grew up in a movement-servicing atelier in the Vallée de Joux and still works the family bench each winter
