Salmon Dial NSO Cartier Crash

If ever a special order Cartier client got it right, this salmon white gold NSO Crash is it. This is traditionally Swiss aesthetic spice on a deeply French dish in London. If you love watches, I promise that should make sense. The salmon dial craze of 2020 has come and past. As someone who quite loves untrendy things, things is a bonus: salmon on white gold is back to being simply timeless. I’ve always said it, but sporting a Crash is the closest thing in watches to walking around holding a Salvador Dali above your head. This one just adds a certain respect for watchmaking history.

Salmon and white metal has featured on some of the most historically desirable and complicated Patek Philippe chronographs, Royal Oaks, and even Langes. Historically, salmon began in pink on pink Patek Philippe in the art deco period, but quickly became celebrated most in contrasting metal. By the mid-century, many of the holy trinity’s best clients would specifically request these dials to be made. And so salmon became associated over time with the rarest special production pieces for the best clients of Switzerland. That’s how salmon got special, by association. Except the Crash isn’t exactly Swiss. It’s more Anglo-French. We don’t even need to get into the apocryphal Baignoire-car-crash story here, do we? Who says amalgamation watches can’t work? California’s culinary scene would change your mind about fusion. Nothing says fusion more than a literal Crash, even if the Cartier Crash was designed collaboratively by Rupert Emmerson and Jean-Jacques Cartier.

The base of this dish is the 2022 Crash, right around the time NSO was gaining popularity. The NSO program was already in full swing when this watch was made, 2021. Just how far an NSO client can push or pull the fundamental design is not well-defined. Everything still has to be approved by the high priests at Cartier and combinations deemed ugly or garish will not see the light of day. I know of several friends of ours who’ve had designs rejected, and that’s probably a good thing. When this hit the desk, I have to wonder if Cartier’s design team just asked if this was meant for Patek Philippe. I love that Cartier are open to this level of play. Cartier of old was all about client commissions. Why should the modern brand not uphold that history? Just don’t make green and purple dials and we’re good. What a tasty, Omega-3-packed Crash.

This example appears to have hardly been worn, which is great for whoever is picking it up next. It comes with the full set, from a well-regarded private collector in the watch world.