What is it with animals and jewellery houses? Cartier has the panther, Bvlgari the snake and Chaumet its bees. Cartier has been synonymous with the panther since Louis Cartier first used its spotted coat in 1914, on a women’s wristwatch set with onyx and diamonds.
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Cartier don’t release high jewellery collections without a panther in them, and ‘Into the Wild’ has several. There is a tête-à-tête bracelet in white gold, with the cat’s coat replicated entirely in diamonds with matching earrings. Two different pavé settings alternate so that the light moves across it like fur, while the emerald eyes are encircled by the maison’s “fur setting”. Additionally, there’s a rose-gold necklace in obsidian, onyx and diamonds and emerald eyes with its own matching earrings, and a yellow-gold bangle with onyx, black lacquer and tsavorite eyes.
The panther is also presented as a jewellery watch, made at Cartier’s Maison des Métiers d’Art in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. Inspired by the technique of cameo carving, the animal emerges in sculptural yellow gold above an onyx dial, with tsavorite eyes, a black-lacquer coat and diamonds around the bezel and lugs.
But the real story is a menagerie of new animal-head rings: a rhinoceros, parrot, tiger, carp and crocodile. Cartier calls it ‘The Gallery of Animal Portraits’ and places the collection within Faune & Flore. The ‘Animals’ collection also extends beyond the rings. The tiger and crocodile become fully articulated necklaces and bracelets, while a diamond and onyx crocodile and a yellow-gold tiger also appear as pins. This is a complete jewellery collection, not simply five one-off animal rings.
Each piece has a reference number but as of now no published price. These are not one-off high jewellery creations. They are demi-high jewels, extraordinary pieces made in limited numbers for Cartier’s rapidly growing clientele. Cartier is a house in ascendancy and can barely meet its clients’ appetite for jewellery.
The best piece in the collection is the rhinoceros head. Made of white gold, it is hand-brushed and polished in alternating surfaces to recreate the animal’s skin, with spessartite-garnet eyes, horns in grey agate and a line of black lacquer. The inside of its mouth is perforated to mirror the cracks in the animal’s thick hide.
The parrot is white gold and platinum, with a coral-and-onyx crest and tsavorite eyes. The carp combines white and rose gold with dumortierite-quartz gills and sapphires. The tiger has dumortierite-quartz stripes over sapphire pavé and aquamarine eyes, with diamonds set in what Cartier calls a galuchat effect, the stingray-skin texture it uses when it wants to suggest ice. The crocodile comes in diamonds, onyx and emeralds: white, black and green, one of the maison’s oldest colour combinations, complete with an articulated jaw.
The tiger and crocodile receive the full Cartier treatment, and the reason is because of the archive. Cartier’s association with animals has a history: birds and insects around 1900, followed by reptiles, felines and chimeras, then the zebra and elephant, before Jeanne Toussaint’s first three-dimensional panther in 1948.
The Duchess of Windsor’s tiger jewels from the 1950s and María Félix’s two-crocodile necklace from 1975 are the pieces against which every later Cartier animal is measured, and ‘Into the Wild’ knows it. Both animals return as articulated necklaces and bracelets. The tiger is rendered in sapphires, aquamarines, dumortierite quartz and chalcedony beads; the crocodile in diamonds and onyx, bordered with chrysoprase and rubellites. In both, the clasp is hidden inside the animal’s mouth, so that its head appears to bite its body shut. It is the atelier showing off, and the mechanism is reserved for the two creatures with pedigree.
The rhinoceros, carp and parrot are the new additions to the family. Cartier has made birds for a century, but a carp and rhino, as far as we are aware, have not been seen before. A maison that trades on continuity does not add animals to its animal collection casually. Adding these animal portraits in one collection tells you this is a theme Cartier is likely to continue. This Winter there is no Love or Trinity relaunch. That tells you the space belongs to the animals.
Tilda Swinton is the Parisian jeweller’s new ambassador, photographed wearing all five of the animal head rings. She was at the Croix des Gardes for the high jewellery launch in May. For years she has worn the designs of the house. Her collaborator Luca Guadagnino collected the Cartier Glory to the Filmmaker Award at Venice this week.
Swinton’s films are regarded by the movie industry as art, and that’s why she’s wearing these Cartier pieces. She’s not there just to sell the rings, but to present them as individual pieces of art.
Pierre Rainero, Cartier’s director of image, style and heritage, explained that each creature “becomes an opportunity to deliver a message about yourself.”
Which one would you wear?
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