Eight watches for time travellers

Great design is timeless; but it should also be a distillation of the spirit of its age, whether we’re talking about architecture, furniture, fashion or, in this case, the latest crop of watches, which reference icons of bygone decades.

Cartier has a Dual Time Santos that harks back to its first ever square wristwatch, complete with distinctive visible screws. Created for the Brazilian-born airship pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont in the early 20th century, it’s a tool watch that has become the definition of elegance. Rolex, meanwhile, goes full-on classical with its latest Perpetual 1908, pinpointing the year when Hans Wilsdorf created the brand; it’s not exactly the watch that kicked off the whole story for Rolex, but is a cool tribute to the quiet aesthetics of that first.

Want to be translated back to the 1970s? TAG Heuer has a fittingly racing-green take on its square Monaco watch, named after the Grand Prix, and made famous by Steve McQueen in the 1971 film Le Mans. Audemars Piguet looks to 1960s brutalism with its asymmetric [RE]Master02; and Girard-Perregaux offers another take on its quintessential 1970s retro-futuristic digital LED display “Casquette”, of which only 8,200 were originally made. Or go diving with Jacques Cousteau, wearing the ultra-macho-looking Omega Seamaster Ploprof (short for “plongeur professionnel”) used by the legendary oceanographer – the most iconic undersea watch of its time when it was launched in 1970.