Gen Z’s Rolex? How Cartier rode the Taylor Swift effect to the top

Key topics.Swift sparked viral demand for Cartier watchesShift from bulky sports watches to small gold dress stylesCartier sales now outpacing Rolex growth among young buyers.Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..By Andrea Felsted.When Taylor Swift announced her engagement to Travis Kelce, it wasn’t just the huge diamond ring that sent fans into a frenzy. For watch enthusiasts, it was the rare gold and diamond Cartier timepiece she was wearingThe superstar sporting the discontinued Santos Demoiselle cemented the brand as Gen Z’s most wanted, upending the watch market in the process. Cartier is at the forefront of a shift to smaller, dressier models, disrupting the decade-long dominance of chunky sports watches, and helping its owner, luxury conglomerate Cie Financiere Richemont SA outperform the industry’s biggest names, including Rolex, this year..To trace the popularity of Cartier, we need to look to another celebrity: Kim Kardashian. Around a decade ago, the Kardashian sisters began showing off Cartier’s Love bracelets.As affluent young women were stacking the bangles on their wrists, Cyrille Vigneron, Cartier’s chief executive officer from 2016 until last year, was transforming the storied house. He moved away from complicated timepieces, and instead focused on Cartier’s heritage of more unusual shaped yet expertly crafted models.The masterstroke came in 2017, when he relaunched the Panthere. The campaign film, shot by Sofia Coppola, featuring a young woman in Los Angeles and set to the pulsating beat of Donna Summer’s I Feel Love, tapped into the Gen Z zeitgeist. As part of the refresh, Cartier invited customers with existing Pantheres to bring them back, to be repaired for free, with a two-year warranty. Many women fixed watches that had been languishing unworn, and gave them to their daughters or granddaughters, creating a new generation of fans.Vigneron didn’t stop at the Panthere. A year later, he relaunched the Santos De Cartier with a campaign featuring Jake Gyllenhaal and continued to reimagine other iconic lines, such as the Tank and Baignoire, extending some ranges into mini-watches.The changing nature of luxury has also contributed to Cartier’s success. As the price of handbags has skyrocketed, consumers, particularly younger buyers, have turned to jewelry. One of Richemont’s strengths across its jewelry businesses, which also includes Van Cleef & Arpels, is maintaining entry level prices, and this carries over to watches. A mini steel Panthere is available for about £3,500 ($4,600), roughly the same as many handbags. Cartier watches are also widely available, although there are waiting lists for some models. Those encrusted with diamonds, as favored by Swift, are particularly popular..All this has put Cartier at the top of Gen Z’s wish list. Young buyers are shifting from bulky, mostly steel sports watches, led by Rolex, to smaller, predominantly gold models. The styles are being worn not only by women — some of whom are stacking them like bracelets — but also men, such as Cartier ambassador Timothee Chalamet. The brand doesn’t segment its watches by gender, but about 55% of its sales are to men, and 45% to women, estimates industry adviser LuxeConsult..According to watch-trading platform Chrono24, Cartier’s share of money spent by Gen Z customers on its site jumped to 6.8% in the first half of this year, from 1.7% in 2018. Cartier’s share among all age groups has risen to 5.4% currently from 2.9% in 2018..Second-hand prices for Cartier watches rose 10% between March and October, according to Subdial. The UK-based trading platform is regularly asked to source Pantheres, in a way it was not two to three years ago, perhaps reflecting their popularity with influencers and on TikTok..But growth is even more impressive for new models. Cartier is part of Richemont’s jewelry division, so it does not disclose the brand’s watch performance. But Vontobel Equity Research estimates that Cartier watch sales rose 15% from January to September. This is ahead of Rolex, estimated to have increased sales by a high single-digits percentage, and the broader Swiss watch industry, where sales declined.Cartier watch sales could reach €3.6 billion ($4.2 billion) this year, analysts at Morgan Stanley estimate, overtaking Richemont’s other watchmakers for the first time in 20 years..Can Cartier’s Gen Z popularity last?The brand is expected to produce 715,000 watches this year, far less than Rolex’s 1.2 million, according to Vontobel. So, there’s plenty to go for, particularly among Chinese consumers, for whom Cartier is increasingly resonating.But secondary prices have slipped over the past month, while Chrono24 has seen a slight dip in demand for dress watches in Asia and North America. Some young US consumers are under pressure from inflation, rising student loan repayments and a weaker jobs market.Rivals have noticed Cartier’s success. Rolex released a new dress watch collection, the 1908, two years ago. In its steel models, it’s experimenting with playful colored dials, such as pistachio and lavender, including in smaller sizes. Rolex discontinued the 26mm Lady Datejust in 2015, as watches super-sized. But this model, which has the same old money vibe as the Panthere, is popping up on TikTok, and changing hands at higher prices. Reissuing it would be a smart way for Rolex to compete.Richemont has a rich heritage within Cartier, which its new CEO Louis Ferla can continue to exploit. There are also models within the company’s watchmakers that could pick up any slack. Jaeger-LeCoultre has relaunched the Reverso, which works equally well for men and women, while Piaget has introduced the asymmetric Sixtie.But of course, the coup would be bringing back the Santos Demoiselle. Watchmakers rarely give clues about their future plans, but what better way to keep Cartier’s momentum going than transforming the “Taylor Swift Cartier” into TikTok’s next It-girl watch?.2025 Bloomberg L.P.

Gen Z’s Rolex? How Cartier rode the Taylor Swift effect to the top

Related Stories

New Fed chair Warsh faces inflation and Trump pressure

The R24 billion debt crisis ruining SA universities

Middle East tensions threaten first SA rate hike since 2023

UK demographic crisis: Birth rates hit historic lows