It boy vs It girl. Functional or sensual. Industrial, natural. Whichever descriptors one applies, Cartier’s Santos and its Panthère appear to be the opposites of one another. One was the first pilot’s watch, while the other is an archetypal jewellery watch. The Santos was born out of the creative thrum of the turn of the century, while the Panthère reflects the venal sensuality of the decade of greed. However, the models are actually more simpatico than one might at first think: not least because they are both examples of Cartier’s love affair with the square.

Watches are more than just ways to tell the time – rather, their designs are an embodiment of the historical moment in which they were conceived. Louis Cartier, just like the Santos, was a product of his age. Paris had recently been “deodorised” by the new urban designs of Baron Haussmann, who replaced the dark winding streets, full of the squalor and despair evoked in Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, with straight lines and wide boulevards. Gustave Eiffel had recently completed his tower, and Cartier’s friend Alberto Santos-Dumont had, in 1901, made his first flight, through the skies of Paris, aboard his dirigible balloon. It was into this modern, busy, constantly in-flux world that Cartier’s Santos was born.

When it was clear that piloting with a pocket watch simply wouldn’t do, the Santos was created by Cartier for Santos-Dumont. “What made the Santos stand out was the way that a then-jewellery company found a way to keep time on people’s wrists in a way that seemed to come not from the world of luxury, but from utility,” explains writer and broadcaster, Deyan Sudjic, the former director of London’s Design Museum. “The Santos spoke the language of scientific instruments and aviation controls, rather than ornament. It had a natural authority that served to define a new type – the wristwatch – and it gave men permission to wear jewellery that had a functional alibi.”

But the Santos was a watch of its time in more ways than just its functionality. The visible screws on the bezel were reminiscent of the rivets that held Gustave’s tower together; the square shape mimicked its base as seen from Santos-Dumont’s dirigible; its aesthetic spareness echoed Haussmann’s clean, wide streets. Being a jewellery company, Cartier had the audacity to make its watch in platinum but without the diamonds usually associated with this metal, which, as Jean-Pierre Blay writes in the book which accompanied the Design Museum’s 2017 Cartier in Motion exhibition, became “part of the redefinition of mobility and elegance.” Here was luxury metal at the service of a utilitarian form: anyone with even the mildest interest can sense the impact of such a decision.

If the Santos speaks to this particular era, what does the Panthère say about the time into which it was born? 1983 may have been a moment of global tension due to the ongoing Cold War, but it was also a time of innovation and opulence. It saw the birth of the early internet and the influence of Studio 54 (something felt even if you couldn’t get through the front door). For a sense, one New York Times review of this particular year in fashion talks of Boy George shaving his eyebrows and wearing lipstick, as well as Flashdance, which follows a female welder’s quest to become a professional ballet dancer (with the fashions to match). Japanese designers such as Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo were on the rise and in Paris, Karl Lagerfeld was revolutionising Chanel. The Panthère, with its slinky sensuous bracelet, and case design that referenced the Santos but filtered its form through a feminine lens, spoke to the times for men and women both.

Pierce Brosnan and Keith Richards were both pictured wearing it, while female fans included Madonna and Jane Fonda. “The Panthère belongs to a very different, less innocent era,” says Sudjic. “It is a sophisticated development of the design language that gave Cartier its distinctive identity at the turn of the 20th century. The strength of the original is demonstrated in the way that it still has a contemporary relevance.” Despite its seductive aura, it became the accessory for women who take no prisoners, something that has continued into the modern era: on screen the likes of Succession’s Shiv Roy are seen wearing one (and, in that show, no watch is a coincidence).

Both designs, despite being nearly 80 years apart, have come to define Cartier in a way that the Tank has never quite managed. It’s not that the Tank isn’t popular, but that the nature of its fandom isn’t quite as heated. “The Panthère has been a proven classic for over four decades, and its re-release in 2017 (having been discontinued in 2004) landed at the perfect moment when many in this generation were hitting their stride professionally and looking for a watch that could represent their newfound stability,” says Trang Trinh, founder of Girlsoclock, a platform devoted to exploring women’s watches in fresh new ways. “It’s a safe bet as a woman venturing into the watch world, but it’s never a boring one. The appeal might even be nostalgic – a piece their mother might have worn in decades past. It’s enduringly stylish, versatile, and aligns with the generation’s preference for things that feel curated, intentional, but not fussy.”

As with when it first launched, the Panthère isn’t just appealing to women. Timothée Chalamet, for example, was spotted wearing a diminutive 23mm version to a basketball game in 2023. On the flip side, the Santos demonstrates a similar gender-fluid appeal, worn by everyone from Tom Cruise to Rihanna (who, incidentally, is also a Panthère wearer).

This fluidity could be behind Cartier’s decision to upsize the Panthère while downsizing the Santos and, in the process, managing to pull off the impossible feat of offering everything to everyone. The Panthère may have been inspired by the original Dame à la Panthère (Jeanne Toussaint, the director of fine jewellery at the Maison from 1933 and also Louis Cartier’s lover), but its aesthetic roots lie in the bevelled square of the Santos – the yin to its yang. However, throughout history both watches have walked back and forth across the gender line: the exact quality that could explain why the Santos and the Panthère have a renewed desirability among gen Z watch collectors.

According to a recent survey from pre-owned platform Watchfinder & Co. that polled the buying habits of this generation, Cartier is on the rise. Rolex still tops the horological pops – with 58% of all zoomers asked saying that this is the luxury watch brand they aspire to own – but 29% are crushing on Cartier, which, as the report says, is unsurprising given “a wave of celebrity sightings including Dune’s Timothée Chalamet, Saltburn’s Jacob Elordi, and Mr and Mrs Smith’s Donald Glover.” The site has also reported a 233% increase in sales of Cartier’s Santos de Cartier. This is something Christy Davis, co-founder of Subdial, the data-based pre-owned platform and market monitor, has also observed. “One of the interesting findings is that over the last 12 months Cartier has started to steal collectors from more ‘value’ brands like Bremont, TAG Heuer and Breitling,” he says. “This suggests that the brand has cut through beyond the higher echelons of watch collecting to the regular buyer who's more likely to be attracted to Cartier’s larger production models like the steel Santos.”

That speaks directly to the contradiction at the heart of Cartier’s appeal: that it is simultaneously well known, and maintains an under-the-radar quality. There’s a reason it’s newsworthy that Tyler, The Creator has a collection of Cartiers that, according to an interview with Robb Report, “bring (him) joy,” and it's not because he has some exceptional rarities. It is because a Cartier isn’t a Royal Oak or a Rolex. It isn’t namedropped in a million hip-hop lyrics, and there is something unintimidating yet discerning about Cartier the brand. “Since its inception this watch has been a symbol of glamour, power, and versatility, and that’s exactly why it (still) transcends labels, genders, and trends,” says Trinh, speaking about the Panthère specifically, but the sentiment could easily be overlayed onto the Santos. “Its popularity is undeniable – and for good reason. In the same way everyone knows what a Rolex Datejust is, its widespread appeal doesn’t dilute its aspirational quality.”

They are also both designs that have been reinvented to speak to the moment. In the 1980s the Santos was marketed as a statement of solid masculinity. It had been redesigned in 1978, as a response to the “adapt or die” mentality that had taken over the Swiss watch industry in the wake of the market being flooded with Japanese quartz watches. From that point, became known as the watch worn by Gordon Gekko in Wall Street (1987) – the broker who came to embody the voracious capitalism of the era. Fast forward 40 years and, thanks to a few design tweaks including adding a curve to the case so it sits better on the wrist, a bezel that now extends into the lugs – which seamlessly flow into the bracelet – the boxy masculinity of the 1980s Santos has been softened, resulting in a more gender neutral appeal.

The same is true of the Panthère, but in reverse. What started out as an unabashedly feminine watch has been co-opted by a generation of men who don’t need to advertise their masculinity with hulking 45mm cases and instead prefer to see their watches as jewellery without the need for that “functional alibi” that seduced Santos wearers in the past. As Davis says: “Cartier’s smaller watches are definitely having their moment, spurred on by both watch collectors and wider celebrity culture. The Panthère captures a nostalgic design that harks back to the earliest days of Cartier, with a fundamental shape and structure that mirrors the Cartier Santos-Dumont, the first wristwatch to ever be produced for the public.”

Is simple nostalgia the reason for the continued appeal of both models – or is there something else going on? According to Sudjic, it may simply be because, through “various changes of ownership, (Cartier) has always been guided by an intelligent corporate ethos that has understood the essence of the company’s identity.” There’s recent data to suggest he’s right. As 2024 neared its end, Subdial unveiled its Big Watch Survey. A collaboration with Bloomberg, Esquire and industry title WatchPro, it is a snapshot of what collectors think of the industry. Cartier topped the table of brands to which collectors had begun to pay greater attention, with 17.9 per cent of those surveyed expressing an increased interest; by contrast, 18 per cent said they had lost interest in Rolex. Whether this is down to Cartier speaking to the moment with its potent combination of watchmaking prowess and cultural capital, it's hard to say. But it shows that the continued allure of Cartier, and by extension of its iconic Santos and Panthère models, is working its magic once more. After all, it is hip to be square.