It's mid week and I thought I should write about a ladies watch for a change.
I don't believe I've ever reviewed a ladies watch on this blog up to date.
I've choosen to write about the Cartier Crash
Why? Well because I found it strange that I haven't written about a ladies watch yet so I decided to write about a watch I found strange.
With a price tag of about $70,000 that could have been spent on the car that instead hit the watch.
This watch comes in a 18K pink gold or white gold case set with brilliant-cut diamonds, beaded crown set with a brilliant-cut diamond, silvered opaline dial , blued-steel sword-shaped hands, 18K pink gold bracelet or white gold and if that isn't enough there's one with diamonds, wrist size: 170 mm, mechanical Manufacture movement with manual winding, caliber 8970 MC, Case dimensions: 38.5 mm x 23.1 mm. Thickness: 8.8mm.
Cartier themselves don't have much to say about the latest crash timepiece, I mean who could this watch is.. well strange. But anyhow this is what they said.
Cartier:"Created in 1967 in the heart of Swinging London, the Crash watch captures the incredible energy of the city at that time. With its asymmetrical dial, it revolutionized the esthetic codes of watchmaking history. Consistently released in a very limited series, this legendary piece carries the prestige of its rare nature."
Ok so ladies and gentlemen the history for this timepiece is even weirder. The story goes that a Vice president from the Cartier offices in London, was involved in a fatal car crash. A fire ensued and the occupant along with his watch was caught up in the flames, furthering along the fatality and "melting" the watch on his wrist, a Cartier Bagnoire Alongee, which is shaped like an elongated oval. The watch being melted and mangled took on the shape of a surrealistic watch from a Dali painting. The powers that be at Cartier, found this "watch design" actually inspiring, and decided to introduce is as a new design, and as a tribute to their fallen colleague. Thus the "Crash" watch was born.( in Great Britain the slang for a car accident is "crash")
A few decades after its creation the Cartier Crash became a limited edition timepiece the latest crash model only has 267 limited watches. Odd number of course.
Cartier is known for making beautiful artistic timepieces and indeed this is an artistic timepiece but I still find it strange.
So Cartier took their destroyed Bagnoire Alongee and simply launched it as something new and called it artistic. But it has seem to have caught on and sold well since it's launch in 1967 once it was turned into a limited edition in 1991 it truly caught on with Cartier collectors.
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