Prized by collectors and sought after by stars from Jay-Z to Kim Kardashian West, the Cartier Crash has become one of the luxury market’s most unlikely hot-ticket watches. Straight out of the swinging ’60s, its dripping shape looks more like one of Salvador Dalí’s Surrealist melting clocks than a celebrity timepiece.

The Crash also has an origin story — albeit an apocryphal one — that’s as unusual as its warped, asymmetric case.

The legend begins in 1967 London, when a customer arrived at Cartier’s New Bond Street boutique to repair a watch damaged in a car accident. The fiery heat of the crash had, or so the story goes, melted its once-oval case. Jean-Jacques Cartier, the great-grandson of founder Louis-François Cartier, was “so seduced by the shape that he decided to reproduce it,” the company claims.

Few are convinced by this tale — not least Jean-Jacques’ granddaughter Francesca Cartier Brickell, whose account is more straightforward. In her 2019 book “The Cartiers,” she wrote that her grandfather and designer Rupert Emmerson adjusted the already-popular Cartier Maxi Oval model for loyal clients demanding unique, custom-designed watches. They realized a metal case could be made to look “as though it had been in a crash” by “pinching the ends at a point and putting a kink in the middle,” she added.

Regardless of how Crash was born, the myth has only added to its cultural cache, according to Benjamin Clymer, founder of the luxury watch site Hodinkee.

“I think the story that has been perpetuated is just so compelling, so wonderful and romantic and crazy,” he said. “And then the name, the Cartier Crash with the double consonants — it just rings.”

Only a dozen or so watches are thought to have emerged from this first production run. The Crash’s irregular shape made it laborious to make — and Cartier’s signature Roman numerals and sword shaped hands proved difficult to read.

“That first Crash watch caused a lot of headaches,” Brickell quotes her grandfather as saying. “You see, it’s all very well coming up with a good-looking design, but it had to tell the time too! And because the dial was irregular, the numbers weren’t at the standard places.”

The watch was far from an instant hit. One of the era’s biggest movie stars, Stewart Granger, was among the first customers, though he returned his within a week because it was “too unusual.”

The Crash’s appeal among today’s collectors may speak to wider aesthetic trends.

Words to Learn 相关词汇

【杜撰的】dùzhuàn de apocryphal of doubtful authenticity

【缓存】huǎncún cache something hidden, memory

没人会想到，卡地亚Crash已成为奢侈品市场最热门手表之一，正受到藏家和众多明星 — — 包括Jay-Z、金•卡戴珊等等 — — 的热烈追捧。诞生在摇摆的 60 年代，Crash柔软的形状看起来更像萨尔瓦多•达利超现实主义的画作，而不是名人腕表。

这款手表有一个起源故事 —— 尽管是个杜撰的故事 —— 就像它扭曲、不对称的形状一样不寻常。

这个传说始于1967年的伦敦，当时一位顾客来到卡地亚的新邦德街精品店修理在车祸中受损的手表。车祸现场的炽热已经融化了它曾经椭圆形的表壳。该公司称，创始人路易-弗朗索瓦•卡地亚的曾孙让-雅克•卡地亚“被损坏手表的形状吸引，决定复制它”。

几乎没人相信这个故事 —— 让-雅克的孙女弗朗西斯卡•卡蒂埃•布里克尔就不信，她的故事版本更直截了当。她在2019年出版的《卡地亚》一书中写道，她祖父和设计师鲁珀特•埃默森为满足品味独特、需要定制手表的忠实客户，对受欢迎的卡地亚Maxi Oval款手表加以改进。她补充说，他们意识到，通过“捏住手表的两端让它从中间扭曲”，可以使金属外壳看起来“好像遭遇了车祸”。

无论Crash是如何诞生的，故事只会增强其文化属性，奢侈品手表网站Hodinkee的创始人本杰明•克莱默说。

“这个广为流传的故事如此非同凡响、美妙、浪漫和疯狂，”他说。“还有，两个相同辅音的单词连在一起，朗朗上口。”

据信，第一批只生产了十几只Crash手表，因为不规则的形状让制作很困难 —— 卡地亚标志性的罗马数字和剑形指针也难以辨认。

“第一只Crash手表引起了很多麻烦，”布里克尔引用她祖父的话说。“你看，看起来很美，想出了一个好看的设计，但它必须能计时啊！由于表盘不规则，数字都不在标准位置。

Crash远非一炮而红。斯图尔特•格兰杰是那个时代最红的电影明星之一，他是Crash的第一批顾客，但不到一周就退货了，因为这款式“太前卫了”。

Crash对当今藏家的吸引力可能也和时代的审美趋势有关。(SD-Agencies)