The watch blogging community is very very serious and well-informed. Much talk of movements, precision, complications, accuracy per thousands of a second, provenance. Unfortunately you won’t find such in depth watch reviews here. You get more along the line of “good brand, looks nice, should be reliable, you’ll get a warranty…”

But for most of us, that’s what we want. Who really needs to wear a watch these days anyway? Our phones tell us everything we need to know. And yet, my wrist feels completely naked when watchless. And not a smart watch. As someone who baulks against having to read an instruction manual, I want minute, hour and second hands and maybe a date if I’m feeling really adventurous. You could spend the price of a house on a watch but there are plenty of (slightly) less spendy options that you’ll be able to keep forever and will please you immensely when you catch a glimpse of them on your wrist.

For this post, we’re looking at tonneau watches. Because they’re so pretty! The most aesthetically pleasing shape! And with a Cartier back story. The first tonnuea watch was designed in 1906 by Cartier, the house’s second watch after the Santos. The tonneau, or barrel, shape perfectly hugs the wrist and as someone who’ll always prefer a curved line to a straight, I’ll never understand the ubiquity of the Cartier Tank over the Tonneau. You’ll be hard pressed to find a new Cartier Tonneau online today,.  Tanks, Panthere’s, Santos and Ballons aplenty but if you mosey on over to www.CArtier.com today in search of a Tonneau, you’re looking at a choice of three models, with a starting price of £29.700 going up to £85,000. They are actual things of beauty though: here’s the basic bitch, less than £30k option.

Just how pleasing can one watch be? Look at that sapphire cab on the winder!! The rose gold case, the perfect brown strap. If you did get the chance to buy this, you’d never tire of glancing down at it on your wrist. Other Cartier options that have a tonneau shape, although more squat and less elongated, are the Roadster (discontinued in 2012 so you’ll need to look preloved to find it) and the Tortue. The Tortue is BEAUTIFUL, my utter HG watch, but as part of the Privee collection, also v v spendy.

You can get a Longines Evidenza in brown leather and rose gold similar to the Tonneau above, for the slightly less eye watering price of £6,700 and it has the most beautiful guilloche dial. But let’s look at the somewhat more attainable stainless steel version

Again, the beautiful shape, this one has a guilloche dial and stainless steel watches last forever. I’m not a massive fan of the C word but all the Evidenza options are super classy (check out the green, proper femme fetale option!)

Bit of a different vibe here with the Bulova Gemini Diamond in black. Bulova is a respected American brand with some good value models. This all black model looks super sleek and stylish, having a mineral crystal, rather than sapphire crystal, face this one is more likely to scratch but it should last for years and at £379 you’ll get an pleasingly low cost per wear before too long

You can also get a silver and blue women’s version on Amazon, another eyecatching option

The Tissot Heritage Porto collection carries the flag for the less spendy options. You’ll still be dropping a few hundred on these but Tissot is a good Swiss brand and great value for what you get. I could happily sport any of the models in this range, the one with the black face, I’d be tempted to swap the strap for brown leather because I once saw a pap photo of Kate Moss wearing a watch with a black face and brown strap and it looked SO GOOD. But here I’m showing you the purple one because again with the guilloche.

We’re going Seiko now, the Presage Tonneau appears to be discontinued these days, so you’ll need to go preloved. The dimensions are perfect, it gives golden ratio vibes. Here’s what you can currently get from eBay, Japanese sellers are amazing with preloved watches and accessories – such good bargains but take into account sales tax.

So thus completes our lineup, if you’d not considered a tonneau watch before, I hope you consider one as your next watch buy. The world needs beauty in it and these watches are certainly beautiful xx