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Watches and Wonders Edit: Cartier updates its legendary Santos and Tortue, roars with an animal-themed addition and creates an optical illusion with the Reflection de Cartier

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The monopoussoir chronograph complication was first seen on a Tortue in 1928 and was updated in 1998 with the blued steel, apple-shaped hands and hollow seconds hand that also characterize the most recent version. Other notable features of the new watch include chronograph sub-dials at 3 and 9 o’clock, which are operated by a pusher integrated into the crown, and a railway line outside the hour markers for added legibility.

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Tortue Monopusher Chronograph has Cartier’s thinnest movement

The Tortue Monopusher Chronograph is also thinner and lighter than its predecessors and houses Cartier’s thinnest chronograph movement ever, Manufacture 1928 MC, which is just 4.3mm thick. The hours and minutes version comes in a numbered limited edition of 200, while there is also a platinum version, of which only 50 are available.

Dramatic representations of animals have been a hallmark of Cartier since 1914the year the Parisian luxury watchmaker and jeweler first unveiled a timepiece with a image of the animal most associated with the house: the panther. Over the years, the animal motifs on Cartier watches have taken a huge range of forms, from directly figurative to artfully abstract. The house’s latest animal jewelery watch, the Tigrée Jewelery Watch, leans heavily towards the latter, with a striped pattern rendered in hand-applied lacquer inspired by the shapes of both the zebra and crocodile. Between the stripes the entire thing drips with ice, over the completely diamond-paved case, bezel and dial.

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Cartier’s latest watch with animal jewelry, the Tigrée Jewelery Watch

The Reflection de Cartier cuff watch showcases the watchmaker at its most innovative, pushing horological forms into entirely new territory. This cuff-shaped watch – which neatly forms a Cartier ‘C’ – is a journey into illusion and optical deception, winding around the wrist to end in a dial that points to the other side of the piece, where it meets its own reflection.

The Reflection de Cartier cuff watch takes horological form in a different direction

The bracelet is a delicate combination of lightness and strength, with openwork and polished reflective gold parts. The white gold is partially paved with a combination of snow-set and reverse-set diamonds, while the dial features beveled glass for maximum refractive impact and sparkle.

This year’s Watches and Wonders also saw the unveiling of two new pieces in one of Cartier’s most iconic lines: the Santos collection of pilot watches. The Santos was launched in 1904, specially designed for the legendary aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont, who wore his when he became the first person to fly a motor-powered aircraft in public. The Santos de Cartier Dual Time has a gray counter with an adjustable second time zone in a subdial at 6 o’clock. This is accompanied by rhodium-finished, sword-shaped hands and a seven-sided faceted crown.

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The Santos de Cartier Dual Time places its subdial at the 6 o’clock position

The Santos Dumont Rewind, meanwhile, is a more faithful reproduction of the collection’s classic codes – with one major exception.

The Cartier Santos Dumont Rewind is a retrograde timepiece

As the name suggests, the watch tells the time in reverse, with a movement that turns the hands counterclockwise, making it appear as if it is going backwards. With a platinum case and a carnelian dial, it is available in a limited edition of 200.

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