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30 CAUSE CÉLÈBRE: TANK REVIVAL CARTIER'S Y ou are the company you keep — and there are few more exclusive cliques than those who have kept Cartier's Tank close at hand since its inception 100 years ago. A look at the wearers of the iconic watch, with its understated design and unisex appeal, is the stuff of a rarified history lesson. General John Pershing, the American World War I hero, sported one of the first Tanks, a gift from Louis Cartier himself in 1918. On the silver screen, the Tank debuted on the wrist of Rudolph Valentino who, despite his Middle Eastern-inspired costumes, insisted he wear his beloved Cartier Tank in every scene of The Son of the Sheik. French actor Alain Delon and director Jean-Pierre Melville both serendipitously wore the Tank Arrondie — a discovery made while the pair filmed Un Flic. Gary Cooper and Catherine Deneuve both counted a Tank as their watch of choice. Andy Warhol wore his for status. "I really don't wear it to tell the time," he said, admitting he had never once wound it. And fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent and the late Diana, Princess of Wales, both sought Cartier's Tank for its sophistication, proud look, and design purity. This month, in celebration of the Tank's centennial, Cartier has released four new iterations of its classic collection: The Tank Louis Cartier, first created in 1922, which is now available in pink- or white-gold face options for ladies; the Tank Française, with its steel bracelet and reconfigured side brancards, is set with brilliant-cut diamonds on the face and dotted with a sapphire cabochon on the winding crown; in a rounded, compact update on the circa-1921 Tank Cintrée, the new Tank Américaine makes a modernist, subtle statement; and, as for that historic Tank Cintrée, one of Cartier's first watches, it has been reimagined in two styles — pink gold and platinum — with a transparent skeleton design that exposes the miraculous art of the watch's overlapping gears and mechanical complexities. Cartier, River Oaks District, cartier.com. Christina Geyer Rudolph Valentino wearing his Tank watch in the film The Son of the Sheik Andy Warhol wearing his Cartier Tank watch in his Polaroid Self Portrait Tank Louis Cartier in pink gold