The Cartier Tank takes centre stage at Watches & Wonders
The Tank à Guichets and Tank Louis Cartier are the two new releases from the Parisian house at the 2025 Watches & Wonders trade show
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THE AMERICAN ARTIST Andy Warhol famously wore a non-ticking Cartier Tank. What was behind the pop-artist’s conspicuous thinking? “It’s the watch to wear”.
Indeed, but also consider some of the watch’s other famous wearers of the twentieth century: Cary Grant, Princess Diana, Clark Gable, Jackie Kennedy to name a few. Any and all who strap the rectangular watch onto their wrist represents a life of elegance and free-thinking. Aesthetically timeless – with its parallel brancards inspired by a military tank – Warhol’s thinking hasn’t waned in the twentieth-century either. It’s just taken new forms.
Take Tyler, The Creator, whose rare timepieces by the Parisian house includes auction record breakers like the Crash and Asymétrique. Though as we’re hearing news from the Watches & Wonders trade show currently underway in Geneva, Switzerland, the rapper and creative will want to add these two new pieces to his collection.
As part of their Privé 2025 releases, Cartier will be bringing back the Tank à Guichets watch. It’s obvious from the get-go just how unconventional it is – it doesn’t feature the signature Roman numerals and blue hands – though it isn’t as surrealist as the Crash or head-turning as the Asymétrique. The Tank à Guichets features a full metal casing with two tiny display apertures, a small square at the 12 o’clock for the hour, a little grin at the 6 o’clock for the minutes.
“Six years after the debut of the Tank Louis Cartier, Louis Cartier took his quest for simplicity even further with the Tank à Guitchets,” said Cartier’s image, style and heritage director in a statement. “Time is revealed solely through two minimal opening, with the traditional dial replaced by a streamlined, all-gold case defined by clean lines and perfect proportions.”
The watch was first released in 1928, which came at the same time when train and car travel were taking off. Speed, especially to read time easily and at a glance, informed all technological innovations soon after. Running through the rues of Paris, looking at your Tank à Guichets is 1930s equivalent of wearing a digital watch today. It’s a delightful design in its intent; each hour digit will jump into the aperture as the minute mechanism ticks it along to strike.
This also isn’t the first time the model has had a rebirth. Since the 1930s, the Parisian house has revisited the Tank à Guichets with small edits in material and embellishment according to their cliets’ taste. In 2005, the last time the watch was released by the house, featured the crown bezel in the traditional right-hand side.
This year sees the watch in its most uniform and minimal appearance. For starters, the crown bezel is hidden in the top, much like the original 1928 version. All straps are made of alligator leather in black, dark grey, hunter green and rich burgundy for the ultimate luxury expression. The distinct style comes in the main build though: the satin-finished central face in yellow gold, rose gold, and platinum. Platinum being a new material for the model, experimentation continues with the hour presented landscape in the 10 o’clock, and the minutes moved to the 4 o’clock.
And in terms of the inner-working of what makes the watch an analogue/digital watch, the Tank à Guichets is powered by the hand-wound 9755 MC movement, which was crafted exclusively for this timepiece. Utilitarian in intent, the model will be a sure choice for discerning collectors with a penchant for rare wristwear.
If classic is more your flavour, the house has got you covered. While the Tank Normale is written in lore as the very first in the line, the Parisian brand introduced the Tank Louis Cartier soon after with an elongated rectangular face and its brancards softened at the edges. The result is a bigger dial with an elegant and refined width to easily slip right under a shirt cuff. This is the model notable figures like the Kennedys or Warhol would’ve worn; in other words it’s a testament to the LC upholding the highest expression of the iconic watch.
Available in yellow and rose gold, the watch is grounded in an earthy colourway with a grey alligator strap for the former and and a brown alligator one for the latter. The main innovation comes in the innovative winding movement, named 1899 MC, which sees the LC growing to its largest self yet in this release. With that all said and done, the Parisian house has taken the trade show with two glow ups of its iconic watch. (Keep your eyes peeled, these are the kind of limited-runs Tyler, The Creator would like to get his hands on.)
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