Cartier latest sports watch in 2015 is set Ronde Croisière hotel, and in many ways, it is from the brand’s accident, but it does not surprise move. Cartier is the most important within the luxury goods company Richemont big brands, the family members susceptible colleagues earn watch making, such as Earl, Panerai, Vacheron Constantin, IWC and so on. This means that Cartier has many responsibilities, not only to pick up on it, and also to respond to market trends and needs. Cartier Yaron de Croisière hotel, when viewed from a different perspective, can be seen as Cartier answer at some collectors have expressed interest, as well as consumer watches what the market seems to demand.
So what are those cries that Cartier is responding to? Well, for one thing, people are really into relatively simple and classic looking sports watches. Second, people have been complaining (and in many instances, very rightly so) that luxury watch prices are simply too high for what they are getting. Thus, the Cartier Ronde Croisiere is not only a retro-inspired casual sports watch, but is also a model – with an in-house movement – that comes with a starting price of well below $5,000.
Overall, I like the Cartier Ronde Crosiere collection a lot in both styling and concept. It is a comfortable and attractive watch that serves a lot of stylistic utility. However, there are some very odd design choices and instances where you feel Cartier is specifically trying to defend the more extensive detailing in their higher-priced watch offerings.
I’ll begin with my biggest complaint about the Cartier Ronde Croisiere watch, which are the hands. People who know me are familiar with my pickiness over hands, but in this situation, I promise you that I am not being overly sensitive. As you can see, Cartier opted to go with skeletonized hands for the hours, minutes, and even a bit with the seconds hand. It is as though they chose the proper hands for the Cartier Ronde Croisiere dial, and then rather than include the expected luminant material, simply decided to skeletonize them. Even the round tip at the end of the seconds hand is skeletonized.
I find this design choice abundantly puzzling. For years now, I’ve seen an odd fascination with watch makers skeletonizing hands in situations where it makes no sense. Skeletonized hands can look cool and also serve to let the watch wearer more easily see subdials or other information on the dial that hands might otherwise obstruct. On a time-only dial (with or without the date), there is no functional purpose to skeletonized hands.
At launch, there are three versions of the Cartier Ronde Croisiere and, while they are all attractive in the abstract, only one I can universally suggest as something to buy. That would be the silver dial model with the black hands. This is the only version where you have enough contrast between the dial and the hands for the watch to be legible in most situations. The gray dial is a close second, but not as good as the silver dial. On this model, Cartier was good enough to satin-finish the hands so that they provide more contrast with the shiny gray dial. Again, it is not as legible as the silver dial, but it is manageable. However, the most interesting model with the gray dial and pink gold-toned accents is almost totally illegible in many lighting situations. I can get creative with the photography and show the dial in its most flattering light (literally), but it would be misleading to suggest this as a sport watch that can be relied upon to easily tell the time at a glance. That is really a shame because I quite like that model.
The Cartier Ronde Croisiere case is rather thin, at just 9.7mm thick and 42mm wide. The steel case has shorter lugs and is totally polished, making for a vintage-style look. The thin profile on the wrist makes it very comfortable, and the stubby lugs makes the 42mm wide size comfortable on most all wrists. I quite like the size and wrist presence of the Cartier Ronde Croisiere a lot – which is certainly a highlight of the piece.
