The Santos is the founding watch — the one that proves Cartier is not only a jeweller but a watchmaker, and that the two can coexist in a single object. Its square case with rounded corners, elongated Roman numerals, exposed screws on the bezel — which recall the rivets of the metallic structures of the era, the frames of aeroplanes and the pillars of the Eiffel Tower — form an immediately identifiable formal vocabulary that has not changed in a hundred and twenty years. Current versions — the Santos de Cartier with the QuickSwitch system for changing the strap without tools, and the SmartLink for adjusting the length without a watchmaker — carry the same screws, the same dial, the same relationship between the frame and the reading surface. The form does not need to be reinvented because it was right from the beginning. In Tokyo, the Santos is the Cartier watch that the male clientele wears most readily — its square case, precise proportions and aviation history resonate in a market where watches are purchased with an awareness of their narrative as acute as the awareness of their mechanics.

The Tank is the favourite watch of people who do not like watches that show off. Its rectangular form, flat lateral brancards, blue cabochon sapphire on the crown — the only concession to ornamental detail in a piece of absolute sobriety — make it the watch that has been worn for a hundred years by those who choose by conviction rather than convention. Jackie Kennedy Onassis wore it permanently. Andy Warhol said he wore only one watch — a Tank. Yves Saint Laurent had chosen it for his entire life. Princess Diana wore it on private outings. This loyalty is not a coincidence — the Tank is the only watch whose design is sufficiently affirmed to be recognisable and sufficiently restrained never to dominate an outfit or a conversation. Cartier currently offers the Tank in several formats — Tank Normale, Tank Cintrée, Tank Américaine, Tank Française, Tank Solarbeat — some with the in-house 1917 MC calibre, named in reference to the year of creation. For Watches & Wonders 2026, Cartier Privé offers the Tank Normale in platinum with an integrated bracelet — the purest expression of the House's style.

Cartier high watchmaking articulates around a principle present since the first mystery clocks of the early twentieth century — the hands appear to float within crystal discs with no apparent mechanism, in direct continuity with the House's jewellery vocabulary. The Poetic Complications — complications depicting a ballerina dancing, a bird in flight, the revolution of the planets — are watchmaking mechanisms that produce not information but contemplation. The Cartier Privé programme, launched in 2015, offers each year a contemporary interpretation of a historical House form — Crash, Tank Cintrée, Tonneau, Tortue, Asymmetric Tank — in very limited series with the most accomplished in-house calibres. The Métiers d'Art pieces — dials in grand feu enamel, straw marquetry, feathers — are produced in the Maison des Métiers d'Art in La Chaux-de-Fonds, by craftspeople specialising in techniques that the watchmaking industry has almost entirely abandoned. In Tokyo, these pieces are presented in the dedicated salons of the Ginza flagships — in the same register of precision as the fine jewellery collections that accompany them.

The Ballon Bleu, introduced in 2007, is the watch that confirmed Cartier could create a new icon after a century of Santos and Tank. Its round case with domed curves, its blue cabochon sapphire set within an arc of metal that protects the crown — a gesture that transforms a functional element into a visual signature — and its silhouette as smooth as a pebble immediately produced a desirable watch with no required historical reference. It makes sense on its own, without the narrative of aviation or war. The Panthère — whose motif dates to 1914 at Cartier — is the quintessential women's jewellery watch: a flexible bracelet set with diamonds or coloured stones, a miniaturised movement within a case that is above all a jewel. The Trinity, three interlocking gold rings — white, yellow, rose — created in 1924, is the most worn Cartier jewel in the world for a century. These objects are available in Tokyo across both Ginza addresses, including the 2025 flagship with its Salon Japonesque and Ryo Hikosaka's works in dialogue with the 1907 Japanese brooch.

The Ginza 4-Chome flagship inaugurated in 2025 — seigaiha façade, Moinard Bétaille interiors, Eriko Horiki's washi Panthère on the ground floor, Salon Japonesque on the second floor — is the space where Cartier presents the full range of its watchmaking offer in Tokyo, from the permanent collections to the very limited Cartier Privé pieces. High watchmaking — Santos Skeleton, Tortue Monopusher Chronograph, Rotonde Astrotourbillon, Métiers d'Art — is presented in the salons of the first and second floors by specialist teams whose technical training is identical to that of the boutiques on the rue de la Paix in Paris. The Japanese fine watchmaking clientele is one of the most demanding in the world for knowledge of calibres, complications and model history — an exigence to which Cartier has been responding since 1974, the date of its establishment in Japan, and which has structured the way the House thinks its technical communication for this market for half a century.

Watches & Wonders 2026 confirms that Cartier does not capitalise on its heritage without working it. The return of the Roadster — absent from the catalogue for several years — signals that the House is capable of relaunching dormant families with the same credibility as its permanent icons. The tenth and final opus of the Cartier Privé programme, in platinum, closes a ten-year cycle of annual explorations of the House's historical forms. The Santos-Dumont on a metal bracelet — a first — extends the legibility of the oldest modern wristwatch beyond its traditional leather strap. These pieces arrive in Tokyo boutiques a few weeks after their presentation in Geneva — the Tokyo clientele had been awaiting them, in some cases for several months, with the precise knowledge of technical specifications acquired from reading the reports of Japanese watch journalists present in Geneva. Tokyo is not a market that receives luxury watchmaking. It is a market that reads it.