Panthère de Cartier

Slinking around the wrist, the Panthère de Cartier lies languid like a jungle cat, glinting with the kind of lustrous sheen more suggestive of jewelry than traditional timepiece. For 2018, the watch takes on endless incarnations, each with a seductively lissom identity, expanding its range to include double and triple coiled bracelet straps, their chain links snaking the skin with wicked abandon. But for classicists, nothing can compete with the immortal elegance of the single strap model, which is, thankfully, still very much on the menu. Emerging in stalwart steel, that most industrious of metals offsets the dulcet timbre of the design, rounding off the sweetness to reveal something with a slightly harder edge, though endless options in a spectrum of golds – from white to yellow to rose-kissed pink – sustain its spirit of abundance, if you so wish. The crowning glory – the dainty square case – swaps sharpened corners for curved, its bezel paved with sparkling diamonds, this edition equipped with a quartz movement as a crest of incomparable quality.