There are plenty of questionable men’s clothing habits from the 1970s that deserve to remain buried with shag carpeting and nicotine-yellow tailoring. However, wearing your watch over the cuff of your shirt can create another look. at the premiere of disclosure dayJosh O’Connor arrived wearing a yellow-gold dress Cartier Tank America Not under his sleeve like a normal person, but completely over it – a styling move most famously associated with the late Fiat magnate Giovanni “Gianni” Agnelli. Agnelli may have worn his watches this way partly out of impatience, expert-level hesitation, or because he understood something that many modern celebrities don’t: great style sometimes requires doing something ridiculous with absolute confidence.
Few people attempt this move today, perhaps because it’s incredibly easy to make it look absurd. The over-the-cuff watch occupies dangerous menswear territory somewhere between rakish and completely unruly. Done poorly, it looks as if you wore dark clothes while running to a board meeting. Done well – as O’Connor somehow manages to do here – it exudes exactly that kind of raunchy, perfectionism-defying confidence.
Courtesy of Cartier; getty images
What is becoming increasingly clear is that O’Connor’s choice of watch hardly seems accidental. Yes, he wore a simple G-Shock recently wake up dead manBut there was an unmistakable whiff of prop-department realism rather than personal collecting taste. Off-screen, his tendencies are considerably more sophisticated. Over the past year, the actor has repeatedly turned to ultra-thin Bulgari Octo Finissimo model – arguably the defining minimalist luxury sports watch of the last decade – and now onto one of Cartier’s most beautifully shaped dress watches. The through-line is not hype or flex culture, but intense design and restraint.
That sensitivity makes Tank American particularly suitable. Introduced in 1989 as a curved, elongated reinterpretation of the classic Tank Cintri, the American has always occupied an interesting middle ground within Cartier’s lineup. It is flashier and more dramatic than the standard Tank Louis Cartier, but less serious than the even taller Cintri. O’Connor’s yellow-gold version – with its extended Art Deco proportions, silver dial and dark blue crocodile strap – leans squarely towards an old-world aesthetic. More importantly, it reflects Cartier’s increasingly prominent position in modern watch collecting.
A decade ago, celebrity watch culture revolved primarily around steel sports watches: the Daytona, Royal OaksNautilus, and increasingly aggressive flexible pieces dripping in gems. But collector trends have increasingly shifted toward shaped dress watches with genuine design pedigree, and no brand has benefited more from that shift than Cartier. The company has become the world’s second-largest watchmaker by revenue, behind Rolex, boosted not only by mainstream icons like the Santos and the Tank, but also by new enthusiasm for its stranger, more design-forward pieces. Collectors include watches such as Crash, Bagnoir, etc. tortureAnd Sintri has become a real object of passion. The American, once a bit overshadowed in the tank family, is increasingly riding the same wave.