Must de Cartier Watch Vintage
The vintage Must de Cartier watch was born in 1973, when two minds came together to devise a creative solution to revive Cartier. These two individuals were Robert Hocq and Alain-Dominique Perrin. Hocq, coming from a background in the lighter business, successfully transformed lighters into essential accessories for Cartier in the late 1960s and 1970s. This provided an opportunity for Cartier to expand beyond jewelry into leather goods, pens, perfumes, and watches, offering products that were affordable for everyday use yet still carried the magical aura of Cartier.
Hocq coined the phrase “Les Must de Cartier” with the vision of creating a series of products that people simply must have. He appointed Perrin as the new CEO of Les Must de Cartier, which later became Cartier’s affordable derivative product line.
Perrin, in an interview with FHH Journal, stated that the real catalyst for this process was the introduction of the silver-plated Must watch in 1977, including the Must de Cartier Tank watch with a retail price of just $500.
The Must de Cartier Tank pays homage to the original Tank Louis Cartier but introduced multiple dial options in deep blue, red, and black, and even a tricolor gold striped version. This marked the first time Cartier mass-produced watches on such a scale and also the first time they introduced non-precious metal watches. But it worked. The watch became immensely popular, with sales skyrocketing from a mere 3,000 watches per year to over 160,000 by the late 1970s.
Yet, Must de Cartier remains an integral part of Cartier’s history, reflecting the challenges the brand faced and the efforts made to overcome them. In my opinion, it’s also one of the most timeless watches. It may be a product of its time, but you can never call a Cartier watch outdated.
What is Cartier Vermeil?
The Must de Cartier watches were based on the Tank Louis Cartier and were made from silver, which was gold plated – known as Vermeil
How to change / replace the leather strap for the Cartier Must de Vendome?
This is how the Cartier Must de Vendome watch looks without the leather watch band.
So if you take a look at both sides of one lug, they are different. One side has a small screw inside (red circle in the photo)
Here is the tricky part, all we need to do is to unscrew the inner small screw in the red circle. However, to do so, we have to make the other side fixed when we unscrew the small screw. If I explain again with the photo here, we need to make the green side hold fixed. With that fixed, we need to unscrew the inner small screw at the red side.
So we need to use one hand to hold the green side and use the other hand to unscrew the inner screw.
Custom leather watch band for Cartier Must de Vendome
What information do you need to provide when ordering replacement leather watch band for the Cartier Must de Vintage watch?
- Provide picture of the watch and buckle
- Lug size for watch end and buckle end (size in mm)
- Length for each side (size in mm)
Cartier Baignoire Watch & Watch band Guide
Cartier watch strap buckle instructions
Cartier Tank Solo vs Tank Must