Great watch wearers: Madonna

Madonna is many things. Precocious New York dancer. Eighties pop princess. Global megastar. Ex-wife of the bloke who directed Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels.

And collector of elegant watches.

While Madonna – call her ‘Madge’ and we can never be friends – is rightly known for bona fide dance classics like Holiday, Hung Up and La Isla Bonita, she’s measured her success with a selection of fine timepieces. And though her style, particularly in the ’80s, was more ‘Swatch’ than ‘Jaeger LeCoultre’, her taste in watches is as classic as her music.

When it comes to timekeeping, Ms Ciccone favours rectangular models that recall the art deco designs of the 1920s. While she’s worn timepieces by Philip Stein (famously gifting one to Oprah Winfrey), Rolex (Cosmograph Daytona) and Hermès (Cape Cod), the brand she’s most associated with is Cartier.

In the 1990s, she wore the Cartier Panthère, a watch perfectly in tune with the pared-down look of the decade. Launched in the 1980s, it takes its name from the flexible bracelet, which, Cartier says, “echoes the movements of the Maison’s emblematic animal”.

More significant is the watch she wore during her imperial Confessions From A Dancefloor period of the mid-2000s: the Cartier Tank.

Launched in 1919, the Tank is perhaps the most famous ‘fashion’ timepiece ever – and maybe the only ‘grail’ watch primarily associated with women. As someone whose obsession with style is evident, Madonna would have been aware of its heritage – and its popularity with icons like Jackie Kennedy and Ingrid Bergman.

There’s a myth that the Tank is named after the Renault FT-17 tank (and Cartier has done nothing to discourage this), but it’s more likely it was a nickname that appeared as jeweller Louis Cartier sought to create a follow-up to the Santos-Dumont. While the Santos was made for daredevil pilot Albert Santos, the Tank was unashamedly a fashion piece, crafted so the strap and watch head were in harmony.

For Cartier, a watch was no longer just an instrument for telling the time, but a fusion of art and engineering that defined the wearer’s style and status. Influenced by the clean lines of art deco, the Tank’s angular silhouette mirrored the purity found in contemporary architecture and design. Its dial was just as iconic, consisting of two blued hands and circled by Roman numerals. By the time Madonna had adopted it in the 2000s, the Tank (in its various iterations) had been worn by the likes of Duke Ellington, Catherine Deneuve, Diana, Princess of Wales and even Muhammed Ali.

In short, it was already the quintessential 20th-century watch. And thus perfect for the 45 quintessential 20th-century pop star.