The Cartier Tank: Quiet Luxury, Timeless Power (2025)

by Dara Morgan

Watch the Icon: The Quiet Power of the Cartier Tank

4 Aug 2025

Episode 8 of Watch the Icon is here — and we are trading racetracks for royalty.

This week, Sofia Brontvein decodes the quietly radical story of the Cartier Tank — the rectangular wristwatch that went from battlefield blueprint to global icon.

Designed in 1917 by Louis Cartier and inspired by the profile of a Renault tank, the Tank was never loud. It never needed to be.

It simply showed up — on the wrists of Jackie Kennedy, Andy Warhol, Princess Diana, Truman Capote, Yves Saint Laurent — and whispered, “This is how elegance works.”

In this episode, we dive into over a century of geometric rebellion: a watch that defied roundness, flirted with minimalism, and remained, somehow, the coolest thing in the room.

Here are five things you (probably) didn’t know about the Cartier Tank — unless you have been reading French Vogue since 1923:

1. Its shape comes from war — but its style came straight from Paris. The original design was inspired by the top-down view of a WWI tank. The result? A weaponised rectangle for your wrist.

2. It has never tried to be modern. Because it already was. In 1919. And it still is — somehow — in 2025.

3. It is genderless — in the most elegant way possible. Worn by kings and queens. Writers and rebels. It never picked a side. It simply fit.

4. Andy Warhol wore one religiously — but never wound it. Because “I don’t wear a Tank to tell the time,” he said. “I wear it because it’s the watch to wear.”

5. It has survived every fashion cycle — by ignoring them. From the Art Deco boom to the ‘90s minimalism revival, the Tank has remained effortlessly relevant by doing absolutely nothing.