Cartier Santos Dumont

The watch that helped invent the wristwatch. Cartier built the Santos in 1904 for aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont, who wanted to check the time without fishing a pocket watch out mid-flight, and its exposed screws and squared bezel have defined the design ever since. The modern Santos de Cartier is a proper steel sports watch: a rounded-square case, that screw-set bezel, and a smart interchangeable-strap system (QuickSwitch) plus tool-free bracelet sizing (SmartLink). It runs from a 35mm medium up to a 40mm large, mostly automatic, with the thinner, dressier Santos-Dumont as its hand-wound sibling. The steel Santos on its bracelet is one of Cartier's hottest watches, often carrying a waitlist or a premium, which tells you how well the 2018 redesign landed.