TANK TIME

Here’s why the Cartier Tank remains one of the most iconic watches of all time

- JARED PAUL STERN

“IMPERTINENT BEAUTY, STEADFAST MODERNITY, AND A TOUCH OF SOPHISTICATION”

Cary Grant, Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Humphrey Bogart, Duke Ellington, Alain Delon, Marcello Mastroianni, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Gunther Sachs, Gianni Agnelli, Muhammad Ali, and Andy Warhol. A diverse group of super-cool cats who all shared one thing in common: the Cartier Tank watch on their wrists.

Warhol once said, “I don’t wear a Tank watch to tell the time. In fact, I never wind it. I wear a Tank because it’s the watch to wear.” The pope of Pop Art was, of course, just being deliberately insipid, as usual. The Tank is as much a marvel of mechanical excellence as it is an aesthetic triumph.

This most elegant of watches in fact has a military background, its rectangular design having been inspired by the Renault FT-17 tanks being used on the Western Front during World War I, when Parisian jeweler Louis Cartier initially devised it. And one of the very first Tanks was a gift to General John “Black Jack” Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force, who was stationed in Paris during the conflict.