Santos de Cartier (Skeleton Dial)

The Santos is the first pilot’s watch and the first square watch that mattered, born 1904 and re-engineered with the QuickSwitch bracelet for the modern wrist. Its exposed screws made hardware into ornament a century before industrial design caught up.

This Cartier Santos de Cartier wears a 47.5 x 39.7mm steel case with a skeleton, roman numerals face. 9611 keeps it running.

Fun fact: A skeleton Cartier turns the Roman numerals into the bridges of the movement itself, so the numbers you read are load bearing. Cartier patented the idea in 2009 and it takes a finisher weeks to bevel one dial.