Cartier Ballon Bleu vs Santos-Dumont: Dress Watch Icons | MR PORTER

A dress watch should be quiet. Elegant. Ready to disappear under a cuff and reappear only when needed. And nobody builds a dress watch quite like CARTIER. In this About Time episode, we put two icons side by side — the BALLON BLEU DE CARTIER and the SANTOS-DUMONT — to understand how CARTIER answers the same design brief in two completely different registers. One curved, one geometric. Both restrained. Both, despite appearances, surprisingly wearable with jeans. Shop Cartier on MR PORTER: https://www.mrporter.com/en-gb/mens/designer/cartier Discover more watch stories on MR PORTER: https://www.mrporter.com/en-gb/mens/watches Subscribe to MR PORTER on YouTube for more style, watches, food and culture: https://www.youtube.com/user/MRPORTER Connect with MR PORTER: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mrporter The Journal: https://www.mrporter.com/en-gb/journal