Launched at SIHH 2010, the Calibre de Cartier is a totally new design for Cartier and this is the world's first review of it. This in-depth review is split in five parts for easy reading.
Review of the Calibre de Cartier
By SJX
May 2010
The watch being reviewed is on loan from Cartier. It is one of the very first Calibre de Cartier watches made.
Launched at SIHH 2010, the Calibre de Cartier is a sharp departure from Cartier’s other lines. Conceived entirely as a sports, or at least sporty, men’s watch, the Calibre is aimed at a segment in which Cartier has yet to establish a significant presence.
Cartier has made sports watches thorough its storied past. The watch designed for the Pasha of Marrakesh to swim with was a notable early waterproof watch while the Santos was designed as an aviator’s watch. But because of their refined aesthetics neither of these watches or their descendants can truly be regarded as sports watch in the modern sense of the term.
More recently Cartier has presented watches like the Roadster and 21 Chronoscaph, as well as the Pasha Seatimer which features a rotating elapsed time bezel. Last year saw Cartier unveil one of its most aesthetically radical watches, the Santos 100 coated in black ADLC. All of these watches, however, are derivatives of existing designs.
In contrast, the Calibre de Cartier is a wholly new design, conceived for a particular segment. It is not a diver’s watch like the Rolex Sea-Dweller, nor a pilot’s watch like the IWC Mark XVI; instead it is the kind of watch that is entirely suitable for daily wear to the office and perhaps to the gym. It is, in short, a type of watch that caters to a very broad market.
Yet this watch is hardly bland or generic. While the Calibre de Cartier retains design flourishes that are identified with Cartier, like the sword hands and sapphire in the crown, it looks and feels very different from any Cartier that has come before, primarily due to its large and sculpted case.
But what’s inside the new case is equally significant. The Calibre de Cartier uses a new in-house calibre, the 1904 MC, a simple and robust movement with evident potential for production on a large scale. Coupled with its US$6500 retail price, it puts the Calibre in a strong position relative to others in this price range.
This message has been edited by SJX on 2010-08-23 05:28:08