English: The wristwatch had already been invented by Patek Philippe, decades earlier, but Santos-Dumont played an important role popularizing its use by men in the early 1900s. Before him they were generally worn only by women, as men favored pocket watches. As a result, Brazilians consider Santos-Dumont the inventor of the wristwatch for men.

The story goes that in 1904, while celebrating his winning of the Deutsch Prize at Maxim's Restaurant, Santos-Dumont complained to his friend Louis Cartier about the difficulty of checking his pocket watch to time his performance during flight. Santos-Dumont then asked Cartier to come up with an alternative that would allow him to keep both hands on the controls. Cartier went to work on the problem and the result was a watch with a leather band and a small buckle, to be worn on the wrist. buy wood watch

Santos-Dumont never took off again without his personal Cartier wristwatch, and he used it to check his personal record for a 220 m (722 ft) flight, achieved in twenty-one seconds, on November 12, 1906. The Santos-Dumont watch was officially displayed on October 20, 1979 at the Paris Air Museum next to the 1908 Demoiselle, the last aircraft that he built.

Cartier today has a collection of wristwatches honouring Santos-Dumont called Santos de Cartier.