"But that hardly stopped Cartier from putting out the Crash, whose distorted shape may have always brought The Persistence of Memory to mind, but whose name hints at the inspiration of a watch smashed up in a car wreck. The Crash came out in swinging-sixties London at its very height, by which time Dalí himself had been designing real jewellery for more than a quarter century."
"You can see a few of Dalí's jewels in the 1960 British Pathé clip at the top of the post. Unsurprisingly, they occupy a realm apart from, or at least orthogonal to, that of conventional jewellery. Some of them move: Living Flower, for instance, which "opens to reveal stamen and petals paved with diamonds. The mechanism is embedded in malachite from the Congo, which to Dalí represents the unknown, latent forces, while the gold and diamond flowers, known beauty and creativity.""
Salvador Dalí is widely associated with melting clocks yet never marketed a timepiece in that canonical surreal shape. Cartier produced the Crash watch, whose distorted form evokes The Persistence of Memory while referencing a watch damaged in an automobile wreck. The Crash emerged in swinging-sixties London as Dalí had already been creating real jewellery for over twenty-five years. Dalí's jewels often diverge from conventional jewellery, incorporating movement and mechanics. Examples include Living Flower, which opens to reveal diamond-set stamen and petals with a malachite-embedded mechanism, and Angel Cross, which evokes hypoxyiological ideas of existence.
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