ANYTHING BUT NORMALE

Cartier brings back the Tank Normale, this time for Privé Collection

- JONATHAN HO

PERHAPS THE QUINTESSENTIAL VERSION of a true luxury icon, the Cartier Tank doesn’t need much of an introduction. To our modern eyes, it’s hard to imagine that this classic wristwatch was once a revolutionary force in watch design, and yet, that’s exactly what it was. It helped change and shape an entire generation’s attitudes and perceptions towards the wristwatch which was right up till the time of the Tank, the only appropriate shape for a watch was round.

After pioneering watches like the Santos in its distinctive square case, the Tank with its geometric tank inspired design, a weapon of war was re-introduced by Cartier as one of the most sophisticated watchmaking designs ever in our cultural lexicon. When broken down to its bare essentials and viewed from above, a tank resembles a circle (the turret) inside a square (the main body of the tank) between branchards (the treads of the tank). Cartier agonised over ways to align the watch’s basic premise of hour and minute hands traversing what is typically a circle of 12 hours; in a masterstroke, he simplified the Tank into four lines with two parallel shafts so that the strap could be integrated as an extension of the case.