L O V E

CARTIER UNLOCKS THE LOVE BRACELET

NEW AND IMPROVED?

For more than half a century, Cartier’s Love bracelet has been the gilded handcuff of modern romance—a sleek, screw-locked promise that whispered, I’m taken, and occasionally screamed, I’m owned. It was the jewelry equivalent of a blood oath, minus the DNA evidence. To love someone enough to let them screw a gold band onto your wrist? That was devotion, or maybe just very good marketing.

But here we are in 2025, and eternal love, it seems, has gone flexible. Cartier has launched the Love Unlimited, a new iteration of its iconic bracelet that trades in rigidity for fluidity. Gone is the uncompromising oval of yore; in its place, a slinky, articulated version composed of some 200 tiny moving parts. Think: your grandparents’ idea of forever—only now with a patent-pending clasp and a little more emotional elasticity.

Cartier describes the new model as “a natural evolution,” one that “adapts to modern life.” Translation: relationships—and wrists—have gotten slippery. Where once the brand sold us permanence and exclusivity, it now sells “movement” and “freedom.” The same house that once locked lovers together with miniature screws now invites them to “link and unlink” as desired. You can even connect multiple Love Unlimited bracelets together to form a necklace or belt, which feels metaphorically... on the nose. “Eternal love,” it turns out, now comes with modular settings.

The original 1969 Love bracelet came with its own tiny screwdriver, a now-legendary symbol of commitment or codependence, depending on your therapist. Lovers literally locked each other in. It was bold, romantic, and mildly masochistic. The new Love Unlimited ditches all that for what Cartier calls “a more wearable expression of affection.” It flexes. It flows. It’s easier to take off.

Critics, bless them, are divided. Some call it a brilliant feat of micro-engineering. Others see it as a metaphor for everything wrong with modern love: disposable, bendy, and optimized for daily wear. The New York Times hasn’t yet weighed in, but if it did, the headline might read: Cartier Redefines Forever (Again).

One jewelry critic put it bluntly: “It’s gorgeous, but it’s basically the situationship version of the original.” Ouch.

THE ORIGINAL

To be fair, the new bracelet looks exquisite. The craftsmanship is undeniably Cartier as each link is a whisper of precision. It glides on the wrist like silk and plays well with others, stacking neatly alongside the usual suspects: Juste un Clou, Trinity, Clash de Cartier. It’s designed for people who like their commitment stylish but not suffocating.

The brand insists this evolution is philosophical as much as physical: love today is “ever-changing,” “adaptable,” and “dynamic.” Which is to say, Cartier has discovered the influencer marriage. You can post about it, hashtag it, maybe even divorce it—all without scratching the gold. Traditionalists, of course, are clutching their original screwdrivers in horror. “If it moves,” one old-school collector sniffed, “it’s not Love.” For them, the bracelet’s genius was in its defiance of convenience. You weren’t supposed to take it off for Pilates. The discomfort was the point. Commitment is hard. It leaves marks. But Cartier, ever the barometer of luxury’s shifting winds, knows that in 2025, permanence doesn’t sell like it used to. The brand has cleverly rebranded devotion as design flexibility. Love, meet convenience.

In true Cartier fashion, fluid love doesn’t come cheap. The Love Unlimited sits somewhere between the small and classic Love in price—call it the middle-management tier of emotional accessories. You can now buy your way into the new philosophy of love for roughly the cost of a gently used Vespa.

But while the marketing oozes liberation, there’s an irony here: nothing says “modern love” like spending five figures on a bracelet that claims to symbolize freedom while simultaneously requiring a patent-pending clasp. We’ve gone from I’ll never take this off to I can take it off whenever I want, and Cartier’s laughing all the way to the bank.

In the end, Love Unlimited might be Cartier’s most honest iteration yet. Love, after all, is flexible. It stretches, creaks, occasionally breaks. It’s not as eternal as we pretend and maybe that’s okay. The new bracelet doesn’t mock commitment; it just acknowledges that forever is a little more complicated these days. And yet, somewhere out there, a man is still nervously fumbling with a screwdriver, wondering why his girlfriend’s bracelet now has a hinge.