DOUBLE TIME

How often have we wished to be in two places at once? The Santos de Cartier Dual Time now offers the ability to track two separate time zones making it a must-have for those with a jet-setting lifestyle.

- DANIEL GOH

For as long as we have covered the watch industry, the Santos de Cartier collection has always been the unyielding symbol for three tropes: the pioneering spirit, the history of aviation and an eternal representation of freedom. And considering the theme for our last issue of 2024 is 'The Journey' what better watch to put on the cover than the Santos de Cartier Dual Time. With the watch launch earlier this year, Cartier has added what feels like an entirely natural complication to the Santos collection. If you have a watch collection so interwoven with the history of aviation, a history which ultimately evolved into the democratization of long-distance travel, the inclusion of a dual-time complication is definitely a no-brainer. Thankfully after seeing dual-time functions within other Cartier collections like the Tonneau and Tank, it comes, for the first time, to the Santos de Cartier.

TAKING FLIGHT

For those of us who have been collecting, researching, and generally just loving watches, the story of how the Santos de Cartier came along has been told countless times, to the point it has become lore within the industry. For the sake of this story however, to really set the scene for what the watch represents, we have to travel back in time once again to the turn of the 20th century. It is hard to imagine today but at the time, flight still had to be categorized into two important distinctions, lighter than air, think hot air balloons and the Zeppelin, and heavier than air, which made use of an external power source to produce speed that would turn into lift, thus providing flight.