Cartier

Louis-François Cartier took over his master's Paris workshop in 1847, and his grandsons built the house into what Edward VII reputedly called 'the jeweller of kings and the king of jewellers.' The record supports the title: Cartier codified much of modern jewelry's vocabulary — the Tank watch of 1917, its rectangle inspired by tank treads; the Santos, made for aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont and among the first purpose-built wristwatches; the panther motif; the Love bracelet with its screwdriver ritual; the Trinity's three interlocked golds. Few houses own so many designs that are simultaneously historic and current, unchanged in essentials for a century. The Florence address places the maison among the Via della Vigna Nuova's luxury row. Buy the classics here rather than the novelties: a Tank or Trinity is the rare purchase whose design risk is effectively zero.

Ask to see the Tank in its several case sizes side by side; the proportions read differently on the wrist than in the vitrine, and the smaller sizes are the historical ones.