Cartier and Santos-Dumont watches: the flight from pocket to wrist
History of watches, as well as the history of aviation, is full of paradoxes and riddles.
Let's try to understand so obvious, it would seem, and known facts: in 1903 in the United States the world's first Wright Brothers' plane got off the ground ; in 1904 in Paris, a Brazilian pioneer of aeronautics Antonio Santos-Dumont asked his friend Louis Cartier, a jeweler and watchmaker, making it the first wrist watch for him...
If you try learning the annals of horology a bit, you will find out very interesting details. It turns out that the first watch was created by a great Abraham Louis Breguet for Queen of Naples. The wizard had been working over it during two years, finishing his creation in 1812. That is nearly a century earlier Cartier.
However, he documented the fact of watch manufacture only in 1810, so that no one could challenge his priority.
Moreover, the first run of watches was launched by Constant Girardot in 1880 and intended for German emperor Wilhelm the First Navy naval officers.
Girard-Perregaux workshop released about two thousand of these watches, but they turned to be too innovative for their time, so they decided to cease production.
Then why the first wrist watch is mainly associated with the names of Cartier and Santos-Dumont?
To answer this question, we should travel back to Paris of the beginning of last century, and investigate personality of Brazilian aviator.
In those days, a 30-year-old son of a rich coffee plantation owner, an extravagant and charismatic personality, was very popular in European beau monde.
From 1898 to 1905 he built and «tried» a dozen of airships, having earned many honorary awards.
For example, in 1901, he made a triumphal half-hour flight on an operated airship, rounded the Eiffel Tower, and received an honored prize of 100 000 francs, which were immediately distributed to his workers and Parisian poor people.
On another occasion, he gave the money to help unemployed people.
Santos-Dumont was awarded with an invitation from U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and congratulations of the great inventor Thomas Edison.
A furious Brazilian was on a friendly footing with many cash aces and royal blood persons, so there is nothing surprising in the fact of his acquaintance with Louis Cartier. Naturally, there are no certain evidences of the starter of the first conversation on wrist watches, convenient while running the aircraft, not ignoring the devices on «expedition» into a deep pocket. Perhaps, it was Cartier - by that moment his shopwindows already offered a few female bracelets with watches, rejected by Parisian women in favor of attires with lush long sleeves. But the fact remains: in 1904, personally for his friend Antonio, Louis made a watch on a long leather strap that could be worn over flight jacket.
It is interesting that over the next two years, Dumont never managed to get off the ground for a long.
His projects of a glider and helicopter were unsuccessful, but by the autumn of 1906, he built a double-decker aircraft, which, after several attempts, broke 220 meters through the air on Nov.
12, 1906, which lasted 21 seconds.
Apparently, during these seconds a pilot just had no time for chronography, so the timing was carried out through numerous audience.
A wristwatch from Cartier hardly helped Antonio in the next, also short flights.
Soon the plucky airman fell ill and permanently left the air element.
So, what's the secret of the first flight on the unit heavier than air?
If you asked Parisians in those years, who were the Wright brothers - the answer most likely would be a complete surprise.
Americans avoided publicity, their first flights in 1903 was watched by four witnesses and a boy passing by.
Respectively, there was no resonance in the press.
Long time pioneers of aviation had been waiting for a patent, and could reach Paris only in 1908.
Prior to this triumphant coming, local inhabitants sincerely believed San Antonio Santos-Dumont was the inventor of aircraft.
A watchmaker Louis Cartier's talent concluded first and foremost in the fact that he saw in the Brazilian an ideal prot?g? for his products and, in those distant years, not spoiled with multimedia advertising, made a bet on a favorite child of the nascent century - aviation.
Cartier and Dumont promoted fashion for watches, which made a revolution in watchmaking business.
By the way, amorous Parisian women liked the novelty first of all. Both Santos-Dumont, and Louis Cartier were among their idols.
First, women's dresses did not leave space for handheld watches, and secondly, men turned to be more conservative.
Developing the success, in 1910 Cartier receives a patent for a brand strap clasp to reliably protect watch from accidental fall.
At the same time, Cartier enters into an exclusive contract to supply new timers.
Edmond Jaeger becomes a supplier of machinery for wrist watches, who managed to work with Breguet earlier.
Since 1911, watches receive the name Cartier Santos and come to mass market, remaining one of the most popular and cited Cartier models since that time.
In 1979, hard times for all mechanical watch manufacturers, a new Cartier Santos generation was born.
It preserved the continuity of design and form of the shell, which immediately attracted attention with its deliberately «tech» screws.
However, antiquity lovers still can replenish their collections.
For example, a famous Antiquorum auction still sometimes offers the first gold models of the 1910-s.
Naturally, they cost much higher than in those times.
«Naturally» - not because current dollar is higher and case is a golden.
This happens because they are a print design of Louis Cartier genius, bravery and glory of Antonio Santos-Dumont - airspace conqueror.
This is not a watch, but history itself.
Becoming an owner of such watch means clearly perceiving one's own involvement in one of the most important events of mankind chronicles.
And that could not be measured in money.
|
