Dua Lipa’s gold Panthère
She wears the same watch constantly, which is the opposite of how accessories are usually sold to us.
Wearing: Worn repeatedly, over years — The gold Panthère de Cartier
Dua Lipa is photographed in a gold Panthère de Cartier often enough that it has become part of how she looks, in the way a signature works: not by being remarkable once but by being the same thing every time. She is one of several — Zendaya, Bella Hadid, Nicola Peltz-Beckham among them — who have settled on the same design.
The Panthère is worth understanding mechanically because its defining feature is unusual and copyable. Its bracelet is made of small, flat, closely-set links with a lot of play between them, so the whole band is genuinely floppy. It drapes over the wrist bone instead of bridging it, and it is designed to be worn slightly loose so it slides an inch or two as you move.
That looseness is the entire reason it reads as jewellery rather than as a watch. A rigid bracelet of chunky links sits still and stays where you put it, which is what you want from an instrument and precisely not what you want from a bangle. Anything that moves on the wrist is read by the eye as ornament.
The unfashionable part of this story is the repetition. One good thing worn constantly builds an association that six rotated pieces never will, and it is also, incidentally, the cheaper strategy.
What transfers
A watch bracelet should be worn loose enough to move, and that only works if the links are small and flexible. Before buying, pick the band up and let it hang: if it holds its shape it is equipment, and if it pours it is jewellery. And consider wearing one watch constantly instead of three occasionally — repetition is what turns an object into a signature.
Sources
- Who What Wear — Why Cartier’s Panthère Watch Will Forever Be Iconic (read Aug 17, 2026)
