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The Santos Triple 100
Three Different Faces in the Same Watch

In the early 1900s, at a party in Paris, Alberto Santos-Dumont explained to his friend Louis Cartier how one cannot tell the time on a pocket watch when you are flying and he asked Cartier if he could help find a solution. Cartier took this request very seriously and, in 1904, with the help of master watchmaker Edmond Jaeger, he created a wristwatch prototype that would enable his friend to tell the time without taking his hands off the flying controls.

The watch was modern because it was mounted on leather – a material that watchmakers did not use at the time – and it featured what others hid: the screws. And when, in 1906, the crowd saw Santos-Dumont emerge from his plane “14 bis” checking his wristwatch to confirm his new record, his admirers immediately wanted to own one.

In 1908, Cartier granted their request and created the Santos de Cartier watch for a few fortunate private customers. After 1911, it was produced commercially and some 800 watches were sold between 1911 and 1973.

Today, the spirit of the first unique Santos de Cartier is echoed in the unique Only Watch white gold Santos triple 100. The case of this watch is based on the famous Santos case invented in 1904, which, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Santos, was reworked in 2004 – hence the name Santos 100. It is slightly larger but still maintains the sporty look, aviation-inspired bezel and countersunk screws of the original watch.

“It is a simple concept,” explains Bernard Fornas, President of Cartier. “But, like all simple concepts, it was exceedingly difficult to achieve. But then again, ultimate luxury is owning a unique piece and what we have achieved with this watch in white gold is absolutely unique.” The Santos 100 has three different faces in the same watch – a concept first presented in 2008. The dial itself is made up of different facets and, when you turn the crown, the facets turn.

This highly technical mechanism gives the wearer of the watch a choice of three faces: the first being white with Cartier black Roman numerals; the second, totally engraved with an exotic dragon and a third position, halfway between the two faces, offers a totally transparent view of the unique highend manufacture square skeleton movement, which has been 100% developed at the Cartier manufactory in La Chaux-de-Fonds.

The perfect balance between aesthetics and function

“The specificity of this movement,” says Hélène Poulit Duquesne, Watchmaking Marketing Manager at Cartier, “is that its design has been worked in such a way that the bridges of the skeleton movement also indicate the time. So for the skeleton face, you don’t have a dial, you look through the movement and the movement is in itself the dial with typically Cartier Roman numerals incorporated into the bridges.”

The main difficulty in developing this concept of a special skeleton movement was finding a way to incorporate the Roman numerals with the essential elements of the movement, in particular the plates supporting the bridges. With a skeleton movement, watchmakers normally take a standard movement and work on it to achieve a version that is as minimal as possible. In this case, the square Santos 100 skeleton has been specifically designed as a skeleton movement. This in itself created another problem at the development stage of this watch. Since this skeleton movement was intended to be very pure with a lot of “air” around it, the Cartier team had to redesign the bridges in order to ensure that they could support the movement.

The mechanism for the faceted dials is an integral part of the case, but the watch has a double crown system – the first part of the crown is the winding system and inside there is a second crown which turns the dial facets to achieve the options of white dial, decorative engraved dragon dial and skeleton dial. The whole movement was developed over a period of two years by a team of 18 people at Cartier’s manufactory at La Chaux-de-Fonds.

“When working with skeleton movements,” confides Carole Forestier-Kasapi, responsible for the development of high watchmaking movements at Cartier, “it is always a bit of a juggle to achieve a balance between aesthetics and function and of course we gave ourselves an extra complication by wanting to incorporate Roman numerals in the bridges of the movement. Incorporating Roman numerals, which are very geometric, imposes certain linear limits that risk conflicting with the traditional skeleton form and there are rules to respect in creating a skeleton movement.” To achieve the complexity of this unique handmade piece has demanded the intervention of many different metiers and to ensure its quality has inevitably required stringent quality controls.

With this piece you are not only buying a unique Cartier with three watches in one but you are also acquiring a concept linked to the first wristwatch ever made and more than 100 years of Cartier heritage – a unique and timeless treasure to cherish forever.

 

Credit image: Franck Dieleman © Cartier 2008

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For more information contact:
Ita McCobb
Patrizzi & Co Auctioneers SA
Tel +41 22 318 28 38
e-mail i.mccobb@patrizziauction.com

Audrey Baylac
Association Monégasque contre les Myopathies / Monaco Yacht Show
Tel +377 93 10 41 70
e-mail audrey@monacoyachtshow.mc