The Cartier Octagonal Allongée is a wristwatch case form produced by Cartier London under Jean-Jacques Cartier at 175 New Bond Street in the 1960s and 1970s. The case is an elongated version of the standard Octagonal: stretched on the vertical axis, producing a rectangular shape with chamfered corners at each of the eight sides.
Cases were fabricated by the Wright & Davies workshop in Clerkenwell and brought to New Bond Street for movement fitting and finishing by Eric Denton.
Case and Dial
The longer axis runs vertically. The dial is cream or silvered, with black Roman numerals. The vertical stretch means the XII and VI sit further apart than on the standard Octagonal, while the III and IX are closer together. Hands are blued steel swords, and the winding crown carries a blue sapphire cabochon. The "Cartier London" signature sits below the XII.
The Allongée designation
The French word allongée means elongated. Cartier used it to describe stretched variants of base forms: the Baignoire Allongée (also known as the Maxi Oval) extends the oval; the Octagonal Allongée extends the octagon.
The 1960s and 1970s geometric case range
The Octagonal Allongée belongs to a broader family of geometric case forms produced by Cartier London in this period, alongside Octagonals, Decagonals, Rounds, Tanks, oval variants, and the Crash.
A yellow gold Octagonal Allongée was among the 88-watch collection sold at Monaco Legend Group in 2021.
Sources
- Francesca Cartier Brickell, The Cartiers (Ballantine Books, 2019)
- Monaco Legend Group, 88-watch Cartier London collection sale, 2021
