It was in 1904, when pocketwatches were still in style for gentlemen, that pioneering aviator and bon vivant Alberto Santos-Dumont approached his friend, Louis Cartier, about fashioning for him a timepiece that he could wear, and check the time, while keeping both hands on the controls of his aircraft. The watch that Replica Cartier made for Santos-Dumont, with its distinctive square bezel, is not only regarded by most historians as the first men’s wristwatch; it was also the progenitor of today’s Cartier Santos, one of the watch-and-jewelry giant’s most enduring and influential timepiece collections. This year, at SIHH 2018, Cartier unveiled a revamped Cartier Santos collection for the modern era.
At first glance, the new Santos de Cartier models look very much like their predecessors: the square-shaped bezel, inspired by Parisian architectural design of the era, remains intact, along with the bezel‘s eight visible screws and the dial’s elegant Roman numerals. But a closer look reveals a sleeker, more ergonomic case and bezel shape, and one that flows more seamlessly from the lugs to the straps and bracelets.
About those straps and bracelets: they represent another decidedly modernized feature of the new Santos watches, and one that has become a growing trend among fake luxury watch. They are engineered with Cartier’s new patent-pending QuickSwitch system, which enables the wearer to simply press a hidden button to quickly remove and replace each bracelet or strap. Other brands, like Vacheron Constantin and Hublot, have introduced similar self-strap-changing technology, but Carter goes them one better with another patent-pending mechanism, called SmartLink, which it uses on its metal bracelets. This allows a Santos wearer to re-size his watch easily without using a tool (or paying a watch repairman to do it for him). At the touch of a button located on each link, its attachment bar is unlatched and the link can be added or removed.
The m0vement inside the replica watch case (two sizes are available, 35.1 x 45.9 and 39.8 x 47.5) is also decidedly contemporary: Cartier ‘s self-winding Caliber 1847 MC (the numeral represents the year of Cartier’s founding), which features anti-magnetic nickel phosphorus components in the escapement and movement mechanisms, along with a shield made from a paramagnetic alloy. Together, they render the movement effectively resistant to the powerful magnetic fields a watch encounters during daily wear.
In addition to the models outfitted with the automatic 1847 MC caliber, Cartier is offering skeletonized versions of the new Santos, powered by another in-house-manufactured movement, the manual-winding Caliber 9619 MC, which is notable for the large Roman numerals (specifically the “III,” “VI,” “IX” and “XII”) formed by its bridges.
