THINK TANK

How delicious this must be for Cartier, as it celebrates a century of the Tank: only one other serial production wristwatch predates it, and it’s a Cartier, too. The earlier Santos, however, was a product of expediency, answering the need of its namesake for a watch to wear during his pioneering flights. The Tank, though directly related to a different sort of transport, is more a product of its time, as its shape and name reek of the period. It was a fashion item that transcended the ephemeral.

Born during the First World War, the Tank’s form was inspired by the fearsome machine that rendered horse-borne troops redundant. Because the armored vehicle called the “tank” was a buzzword of its day in the way that “social media” or “streaming” define our technological present, it was a