Cartier Ballon Bleu "Chocolate Guilloche" SS/RG Luxury Watch Review

Watchuwant is now WatchBox! Subscribe for the best luxury watch content. The Ballon Bleu de Cartier is the breadwinner for the juggernaut Richemont Group's number-one moneymaker. And luxury watches like this Cartier Ballon Bleu "Chocolate Guilloche" Automatic are the reason. At 42mm in polished stainless steel and 18-karat rose gold, this feels like the watch Louis Cartier would have designed had he lived in the post-Y2K world. Consider the magnitude of the Ballon Bleu's success; no branch of the Richemont Swiss luxury conglomerate - the second largest in the world - thrills more customers than Cartier, and no Cartier watch is more coveted than the Ballon Bleu. Since its 2006 launch, the Cartier Ballon Bleu has defined "lighting in a bottle" throughout the watch industry. Particularly scintillating (and galling from the perspective of envious Swatch and Rolex execs) has been the Ballon Bleu's performance on the now paramount Hong Kong/Chinese market. More than a successful watch, the Cartier Ballon Bleu has become a full-featured line of diverse sizes, materials, and complications. At 42mm in versatile polished steel and warm rose gold, the Cartier Ballon Bleu Automatic boasts immense presence on the wrist. From a visual standpoint, few dress watches pack a comparable impact without resorting to gimmicks or faddish hooks. The Ballon Bleu pulls off an aesthetic coup simply by balancing the interplay of its many compound curves, the all-of-a-piece flow from case to beze