Paul Mescal rocked a mini Cartier de Baignoire at the Gladiator II premiere. Tyler, The Creator flashed the iconic green crocodile strap on his Must de Tank Cartier. Timothée Chalamet turned up at the Palm Springs International Film Festival with two mini Cartier tanks on a single wrist. The trend for mini watches has spread like wildfire, and Cartier is at the heart of it. Some might even say Cartier lit the match on it. When Watches & Wonders took place last year in 2024, Cartier’s Tank Louis Mini arguably stole the show. A year before, the Maison’s mini Baignoire had done the same. Both models sold out almost immediately each time.

The first embers of the mini watch revival sparked in the mid-2010s, a reaction to consumer fatigue from oversized timepieces. People turned to vintage models from the 1970s, all the way back to the 1950s as an antidote to this fatigue. This momentum carried into the late 2010s, as houses like Rolex, Patek Philippe, and Cartier began looking inward for inspiration. They mined their archives and reissued smaller watches reminiscent of the mid-20th-century aesthetic.

Rolex reintroduced the 36mm Oyster Perpetual. Patek Philippe redirected its focus on the Calatrava. Cartier’s Tank saw a resurgence in popularity. By 2023, small watches had become a dominant force, sweeping through the mainstream watch market and spawning a wave of male celebrities embracing smaller timepieces—just look at how suave Rami Malek appears with a beautiful 24mm x 16.5mm Mini Cartier Tank on his wrist. Even in 2025, articles about this trend (ahem) continue to surface.

This fad for small watches has simmered for nearly a decade. You may be hesitant, worried that the trend could fade just as you invest in one.

And that concern wouldn’t be entirely unfounded, some brands are slowly moving in the opposite direction. In 2022, Rolex launched the staggering 50mm titanium Deepsea Challenge dive watch and in 2023, a 42mm Yacht Master in RLX titanium was introduced.

Patek Philippe discontinued its 40mm Nautilus 5711 in 2021 and replaced it with the 41mm Nautilus 5811 a year later. This was followed by the 41mm 5172 chronograph, which replaced the 39.4mm 5170. Then, in October 2024, Patek Philippe unveiled its largest sports watch yet: the 45mm Cubitus 5821 and 5822, which dwarf even the standard Nautilus or Aquanaut models. If this were 2008, such moves would make sense, but this is 2025. Naturally, a shift like this has raised a few eyebrows because brands like Patek Philippe and Rolex are powerhouses that create rather than follow trends.

Yet, despite this development, I don’t think small watches will ever truly fade. The reason is simple: they are too deeply entrenched in the history of horology. This is especially true for maisons like Cartier, which have a long-standing history with its catalogue of models like the Tank, Santos-Dumont and Baignoire—iconic designs that have become an enduring symbol of elegance and craftsmanship. Watches like these are anchors, grounding us in a tradition that stretches back generations.

Let’s not overlook the practical side of things either—some men just have smaller wrists than others. An oversized watch might not only cause an imbalance between watch and owner; proportions are derailed and can cause physical discomfort as well.

But beyond fit, there’s a deeper appeal. Their smaller frame allows the line between traditionally masculine and feminine aesthetics to be blurred, settling in that liminality where definitions soften. A Tank Louis Cartier, for example, is neither strictly "men’s" nor "women’s"—it simply is. As long as gender-neutral fashion continues to rise and maintain its position as a cornerstone of style—alongside the enduring heritage and practicality—these miniature time-telling devices will remain firmly on our wrists, no matter how often the tides of trends ebb and flow.