Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are engaged. Earlier this afternoon, the pop star and the Kansas City Chiefs tight end announced the proposal via an Instagram post captioned, “Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married.” And in the accompanying photos, her go-to watch over the past couple years—a diamond-set Cartier in yellow gold—is prominently displayed next to her gleaming new ring.
Like many iconic celebrities before her, Swift understands that a classic Cartier timepiece is the ultimate all-occasion watch. It looks great whether she’s accepting an award, announcing a new album, or getting engaged to a guy wearing khaki shorts.
Courtesy of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce
What’s notable about this latest look at Swift’s timepiece—and this the clearest view of it we’ve had yet—is that what we’d previously believed to be a Cartier Panthère in fact appears to be a lesser-known model called the Cartier Santos Demoiselle. (Both Vogue and Dimepiece have ID’d it as such.) While both models are similar in shape and size, the latter is a discontinued women’s variation of the iconic Santos de Cartier, the Parisian house’s first-ever wristwatch that debuted in 1904.
It’s notable that Swift opted for the Santos Demoiselle. While the Panthère has long been a favorite among powerful women (including Princess Diana, Madonna, Jane Fonda, and Kamala Harris) it made perfect sense that a global megastar like Swift would’ve wanted to carry forward that legacy. In choosing the Santos Demoiselle, however, Swift is not only displaying a sharp taste in vintage timepieces but also aligning herself with the rich history of the Santos de Cartier—a watch originally designed for the swashbuckling Brazilian aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont and famously worn by such trailblazers as Lou Reed, Tyler, the Creator, and the fictional Gordon Gekko of Wall Street.
