Return To Form

The Santos de Cartier rejoins the Cartier stable after a two-year hiatus. Terence Lim hops onto its comeback trail to find out more

- Terence Lim

BACK IN 2016, CARTIER made the call to stop the production of the Santos de Cartier collection, much to the disbelief of the watch cognoscenti. A household name, the watch was first designed by Louis Cartier in 1904 for his friend and celebrity pilot Alberto Santos-Dumont (pictured above), who had lamented that checking his pocket watch while flying was troublesome. Louis Cartier strapped a timekeeping mechanism onto a tiny leather belt, and thus the Santos de Cartier was born.

In the ensuing century, the collection attracted legions of fans with its signature square frame, strong lines and beautiful curves. Famous faces including actors Timothy Dalton and Tom Cruise, reality star Kourtney Kardashian and rock and roll legend Mick Jagger have sported the horological icon, and it has even made cameo appearances in Hollywood productions such as Wall Street (1987) and The Love Guru (2008).