How does one upstage Quavo, Sketpa, and not one, but two Arnaults at a Louis Vuitton show? For John Legend, the answer lay in his choice of wristwear. (A killer suit didn’t hurt, either.)
Seated next to Antoine Arnault (chairman and CEO of Dior) and French actor Tahar Rahim at the brand’s Fall/Winter show in Paris, Legend wore the Santos de Cartier Skeleton, an openworked, yellow gold version of the French maison’s famed pilot’s watch. But wait, you say—this shiny hunk of precious metal with a matching, riveted bracelet doesn’t look anything remotely like a classic flyboy’s timepiece…what gives? For the answer, we have to turn back the proverbial clock to the early 20th century.
The story goes like this: Alberto Santos-Dumont—a wealthy Brazilian inventor and aviation pioneer—was in Paris developing both lighter- and heavier-than-air flying machines (airships and airplanes, respectively) when he encountered a problem: Removing one’s pocket watch to check the time while in mid-flight was cumbersome and potentially dangerous. Having made friends with Louis Cartier, the latter endeavored to fashion Santos-Dumont a timepiece that could be worn on the wrist at a time when such devices weren’t worn by men. (They were worn by women in the form of the “wristlet,” but they were dismissed by pocket watch-wearing dudes until the First World War.) This watch, which Cartier named after his friend, was thus not only one of the first serially-produced men’s wristwatches, but also the world’s first pilot’s watch.
Admittedly, it doesn’t look much like the classic round pilot’s watch whose design coalesced during the Second World War: Its case is vaguely square-shaped, with curved ends that form the lugs, rivets in the bezel, a square dial with rounded corners, a cabochon-set crown, and a hand-wound movement. But when strapped to its namesake’s wrist, it allowed him to concentrate on what mattered—flying—and thus, fits the strict definition of a pilot’s watch. John Legend’s version takes things several luxurious steps further: Crafted from 18K yellow gold, it’s significantly larger than the original at 39.7mm in diameter and features a matching bracelet whose riveted design matches that of the bezel.
The dial is where most of the magic is, however: Beneath a sapphire crystal, gold bridges form Cartier’s classic Roman numerals, while a skeletonized design gives a view into the hand-wound cal. 9612 MC movement ticking away within. Said numerals combined with a gold sword handset mean that the design isn’t, perhaps, the most legible in the world—but it’s doubtful that Legend will need to check the time while piloting a dirigible past the Eiffel Tower any time soon. No matter: The Santos de Cartier Skeleton is a thoroughly modern take on an important classic, and while the use case for such a timepiece has changed, the beauty of its design remains.
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