Timeless simply describes the Santos de Cartier watch created in 1904 to be worn by aviation pioneer, Alberto Santos-Dumont.
Cartier's iconic timepiece celebrated its centenary and continues to evolve with its 2018 renditions launched this month at an extravaganza held at Pier 48 in San Francisco, where Jake Gyllenhaal made an appearance as the face of the classic watch with characteristic Roman numerals on the dial and a square case with rounded corners.
The American actor also stars in a marketing campaign and film directed by Seb Edwards that pays tribute to Santos-Dumont, whom Brazilians hail as the inventor of the aeroplane.
His aviation feats included manning a dirigible that circled the Eiffel Tower en route from and to Saint-Cloud in Paris, on Oct 19, 1901.
A friend of Louis Cartier, the Brazilian aviator complained to him how it was difficult to check the time on his pocket watch while flying.
Cartier thus created the squared wristwatch for Santos-Dumos, who used it to measure flight time, such as when the heavier-than-air 14-BIS plane historically took off by its own means and flew a distance of 220m at a height of 6m at Le Bagatelle airfield, on Nov 12, 1906.
With a square rather than round face, the watch and its geometric aesthetics were comparably as revolutionary as Santos-Dumont's flying machines.
The square shape and the bezel's exposed eight screws echoed the refinement and symmetry of Parisian architecture such as that of the Eiffel Tower's four angular corners and other urban mechanical steel structures.
These two elements remain unchanged in the 2018 Santos de Cartier model, which has a sleeker proportion, a more comfortable ergonomic design and innovative interchangeable straps.
The bezel has been updated to facilitate the synergy between the lines of the case and the straps, available in steel and gold as well as colourful calfskin or alligator skin straps.
Hidden under the strap, the patent-pending Cartier QuickSwitch system blends into the case structure while wearers can simply press the mechanism to activate the system and swap straps, from a bracelet to a leather one and vice versa.
Moreover, without the use of a tool, the length of the metal bracelet can be adjusted with the SmartLink self-fitting technology. At the touch of a button located on each SmartLink, the attachment bar is unlatched and one of the brushed metal links with screws can be added or removed from the Santos de Cartier watch easily by the wearer.
Variations come in steel, yellow gold, pink gold, yellow gold with steel, and in medium and large sizes, the latter with a date display at the 6 o'clock position.
All models are equipped with the 1847 MC automatic calibre featuring antimagnetic nickel phosphorus components in the escapement and movement mechanisms, as well as a shield made from a paramagnetic alloy.
Besides magnetic fields, the timepiece has been tested by the Cartier Manufacture workshops for resistance to variations in position, humidity, temperature, pressure, exposure to impact and acceleration, in preventing these factors from interfering with the watch's accuracy.
The French maison has also released skeleton versions of Santos de Cartier, housed in a steel or pink gold case and powered with a manual movement.
The Santos de Cartier collection is available at Cartier boutique at Siam Paragon and Emporium.
