The Artistry of Cartier’s Beautés du Monde High Jewellery Collection
To realise its high jewellery collection, Beautés du Monde, Cartier has combed the earth to discover magnificence from unexpected sources and beauty amid unpredictability, says the Maison’s Director of Image, Style and Patrimony, Pierre Rainero.
Development of Cartier’s latest high jewellery collection, titled Beautés du Monde, began some two years ago, around the same time the world was going through upheaval. And though world events had no direct influence on the direction of the collection, there was perhaps some unconscious connection between them, says Cartier’s Director of Image, Style and Patrimony, Pierre Rainero.
“The idea to focus on what is beautiful in periods of instability or doubt is a way of looking for what is permanent and what creates a link between human beings,” he says. “I think probably there was such an aspect in this collection.”
Cartier went on a search for beauty during uncertain times, and find beauty it did. From vast landscapes to microscopic features, from antiquity to timeless geological formations, a wealth of sources was drawn from to create a transcendent range of jewels that encapsulate the breadth of the universe’s marvels and exemplify the Maison’s command of design and artisanship. And the house brought the sumptuous high jewellery necklaces, brooches, earrings, rings and bracelets to life through splendid precious stones, including opals from Australia, orange sapphires from East Africa, and emeralds from Zambia and Colombia.
Inspiration for the jewellery includes water lilies, coral reef atolls, iguanas, vipers and even traditional Mesoamerican jewellery. Cartier has traditionally looked to nature — specifically flora and fauna — for inspiration, Rainero explains, but in Beautés du Monde, the Maison enriched that interpretation by exploring realms from landscapes to human culture.
“Since the beginning of the birth of a Cartier style, there has been the idea that there are many forms of beauty everywhere, and this collection stresses the traditional open eye we have on the world,” Rainero adds. “In fact, this collection is named ‘beauties of the world’ in French, but it could have been ‘in search of the wonders of the world.’”
“It’s about being open to all the wonders that the world can show, for the pleasure of our eyes.”
Alongside the spectacular Beautés du Monde high jewellery creations, a distinct jewellery collection comprising three parures extends the theme and highlights the imagination of Cartier’s designers. Bearing the red and black colour pairing emblematic of Cartier, the necklaces, earrings, rings, bracelet and brooch are crafted from onyx, rubellites and diamonds, evoking a zebra’s irregularly shaped stripes, the articulation on a palm tree trunk, or the minute scales on a butterfly’s wings. And within Beautés du Monde, a capsule collection of seven rings showcases the Maison’s virtuosity. Designed like miniature sculptures, the rings take reference from a diverse range of sources: the contours of ammonite fossils, Chinese puzzle balls, serpent-like water spirits from Japanese mythology, asteroids and more.
“It’s in the tradition of Cartier to have an eye on foreign cultures,” Rainero says. “So the collection of rings also offers the possibility to see the different dimensions and specificities of the Cartier approach to high jewellery.”
How it all comes together
The pieces that make up Beautés du Monde collectively convey Cartier’s style and evolution thereof, and the Maison’s design ethos and craftsmanship, but they go a step further by exploring new forms that blur the interface between figuration and abstraction — something very contemporary Cartier, Rainero says. Take for example the Iwana necklace, a masterpiece in platinum set with supple diamond-paved triangles and three faceted Colombian emerald cabochons that evoke a reptile’s dorsal spines. It is a piece that illustrates many perspectives of Cartier’s approach to high jewellery: being inspired by gemstones, and structuring any composition in a way that draws the eye to them.
Another feature of the collection is the Cartier vocabulary in terms of shapes, such as the triangle that forms the basis of the Iwana necklace, the way the design is perceived through the voids in between the diamond-paved pieces, and the links that connect the array, Rainero continues.
With gemstones as the linchpin of any high jewellery of Cartier’s, they inform how a collection’s initial theme evolves and materialises, and that in turn influences the gemstone sourcing process. Design begins when the Maison has amassed a reasonable number of stones to create a new collection, though the theme of inspiration can change if it turns out those stones do not lend themselves to the initial concept. “Nothing can really be planned. We have to be very modest and cautious, as everything is linked to the stones, because you cannot order the stones,” Rainero explains. “You work with the stones you find, and this makes you modest in front of the work you do."
Stylistically, the Maison’s designers and artisans and even those who source for gems engage in creative dialogues on how best to communicate ideas through jewellery: a broad, long-term discussion on what has been done in the past and potential plans for the future, and how those are aligned with what Cartier stands for; and a shorter-term conversation around each piece designed and its merits and modifications. Both rhythms are linked and are in service of a global vision of what Cartier should be; at the same time there is one vision and one culture at Cartier, Rainero says. “But it is permanently nourished by individuals, and I think that’s what makes the creative process so interesting and so rich.”
Work has already begun on the high jewellery collections to be unveiled next year and the year after that. With each successive presentation, Rainero is always on the lookout for jewellery that sparks amazement. “Deep in my heart, I like to be surprised — there’s nothing worse than finding what you expected,” he says.
“It’s an apparent paradox, because at the same time, every piece should be recognisable as very Cartier, but also a surprise. I think that’s a challenge all the time.”
