A few brands have a watch that seems to be totally different to the house style, such as the Type XX/XXI/XXII pilot’s watches by Breguet, and the Cartier Calibre de Cartier Diver. Cartier is a watch and jewellery brand, and even its non-jewellery watches have a dressy, showy appeal. A diver’s watch on the other hand is a practical instrument, a so-called tool watch. The Cartier Calibre de Cartier Diver meets the ISO 6425 standard for diver’s watches, and this means that it is perfectly suited to the underwater world. The principal requirement of ISO 6425 is that each watch has to be tested to 125% of its water resistance rating, and so this watch has been tested to 375 metres depth.
This year’s version of the Cartier Diver has an attractive blue dial, with large XII numeral, Roman numerals in the top part of the dial, and baton hour indicators in the bottom half. There is an IWC-like vertical date window, and a continuous seconds subdial at 6 o’clock. The watch is relatively slim at 11 mm, but it wears large, because even though the official size is 42 mm, the rotating bezel is larger at 43.8 mm. The crown guard further increaases apparent size. The seven-side screw-down crown is finished with a spinel. The caseback is solid, fastened with eight screws. The unidirectional rotating bezel has a ratchet that adjusts to half-minute intervals, therefore a total of 120 clips for the complete revolution.
Compared with most other diving watches, the hour and minute hands are rather slender, but they are coated with SuperLuminova, as are the square dots on the minute scale, the seconds hand and the circular surround of the seconds subdial, It’s a dial of great visual interest, including an anti-counterfeit detail, the name Cartier microprinted into the crosspiece of the numeral XXII. The watch has a soft rubber strap and a solid caseback.
Inside the case, the 1904 MC movement is an in-house calibre launched in 2010, designed by Carole Forestier-Kasapi. It has two series-coupled barrels whose interaction evens out power transfer over the duration of the 48-hour power reserve. The movement has 186 components and runs at 28,800 vibrations per hour, 4 Hertz.
The lowest-price version is the all-steel model, reference WSCA0010 (strap in blue calf and rubber), price €7,750, $7,900, or WSCA0011 (rubber strap), same price. The version in steel with details in pink gold (bezel, crown and dial details) is reference W7100055, price €10,100, $10,200. The version with case in pink gold is reference W7100052, price €26,800, $27,300.