With the new Love Unlimited, Cartier reimagines its iconic wrist adornment for a new era of connection
Heartbreak has a way of forcing clarity. For Aldo Cipullo, a young Italian-born designer working in New York in the late 1960s, the end of a love affair was bittersweet. It was a time tinged with sadness, yet fertile ground for invention. And out of that loss came an idea: a band of gold that bound lovers together with screws, as permanent and uncompromising as the emotions it symbolised.
In 1969, Cartier unveiled Cipullo’s creation, the Love bracelet. Stark and architectural, with exposed screws transformed into symbols of devotion, it turned jewellery into a manifesto. Couples wore it like a badge, fastening it with a screwdriver as if sealing a pact.
More than 50 years on, Cartier reimagines this icon with the Love Unlimited. Where the original bracelet held its oval shape with defiant permanence, the new version bends and flows, made of gadrooned links that drape the wrist. The screws remain as a signature motif, their placement carefully balanced to preserve harmony across every size.
Perfecting this suppleness required persistence. Cartier’s designers and artisans worked through more than a hundred prototypes to refine the form. The finished piece, built from nearly 200 miniature components, becomes a seamless ribbon of gold. Its clasp, which can now be fastened and undone by the wearer, merges so completely into the design that it appears invisible.
The engineering alone is impressive: each gadroon was miniaturised to reduce bulk without compromising strength, while the spacing of the screws had to be recalibrated for every bracelet size. This ensures that proportion and symmetry are preserved, no matter how the piece is worn. Cartier even filed a patent for the clasp system, underlining the technical innovation hidden behind what looks like a continuous strip of precious metal.
What sets the Love Unlimited apart is its versatility. Bracelets can be worn alone or linked endlessly, creating pairs or chains without limit. Available in yellow, white, or rose gold, it becomes an emblem of intimacy and expansion at once. A companion ring carries the same codes in miniature—gadroon, screw, shine—as if to suggest that the Love collection is always reinventing itself.
Since its introduction, the Love bracelet has continuously evolved. These include versions made of different precious metals, different sizes, pavé with diamonds, pendants, and rings—all while holding on to the signature look of Cipullo’s original. The Love Unlimited extends this lineage with characteristic verve—as well as an undeniable dose of romance.
