Taylor Swift is clearly a Cartier adherent and has worn a lovely gold Santos Damoiselle over the past year. Her choice of the elegant riff on the Santos had an immediate effect on the marketplace for this model, flooding dealers’ Instas with DMs and inquiries. While Cartier has been hot for some years now—it’s the second-largest Swiss watchmaker by revenue after Rolex—the “Swift Effect” is very real. Stock of gold references like hers immediately disappeared from shelves both physical and digital as soon as she wore one.
Swift’s influence evidently works in close range, too, as her husband couldn’t resist picking up a gold Cartier himself. The Santos de Cartier shares a lineage with Swift’s—an homage to the Brazilian-French aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont, a unique case design with a “riveted” bezel, etc.—but is much larger. The effect of Kelce’s is amped up by its skeletonized dial, meaning that pieces of of the movement have been removed so that the componentry is visible via the dial, making for a cool visual effect that reveals its manually wound structure. The skeletonization on the Cartier cal. 9612 MC is particularly cool, as the movement’s bridges actually form the classic Cartier Roman-numeral dial indices.
The watch case itself is pure luxury. Made of 18K yellow gold, it measures 39.7mm in diameter but just 9.08 mm thick, lending it a dressy character despite its larger size. The riveted bezel and eight-sided cabochon crown immediately identify it as a Santos, as does the matching gold bracelet whose screws extend the bezel motif across the wrist. But fear not: for $77K, you also get a second matte-grey alligator leather strap for a slightly more subtle wearing experience.
The Santos is certainly having a (multi-year) moment. Ever since Cartier added several impressive new complicated pieces to the collection in 2024, collectors have begun taking increased notice. Though the original Santos was designed for its namesake male aviator, the collection—which spans the more elegant Santos-Dumont and Kelce’s sportier Santos de Cartier—is popular with both men and women, which makes it the perfect collection to feature on the wrists of the most popular couple on Earth.