A French company that makes fashionable jewellery and, especially, very expensive watches. Cartier is a brand name, always with a capital C. When someone says they have a Cartier watch, they mean a luxury piece from this house, the sort you see in a glass case, not on an ordinary shop shelf. The company began in Paris in the nineteenth century and became a sign of wealth and style. In English the name is said in a French way, roughly “car-tee-AY.” Though actually, Cartier is also a French family name, and other people and places share it; in this entry it is the jewellery house you will see on a shop sign or in a magazine.