Jacqueline Karachi on the inspiration behind Cartier's Beautés du Monde High Jewellery collection
Cartier's creative director Jacqueline Karachi on the iconic designs of the latest High Jewellery collection
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Inspired by the earth and all its elements, Cartier's Beautés du Monde collection evokes a sensory awakening — one that reminds you of the wondrous nature of the world through jewellery.
For Cartier, this High Jewellery collection is about “capturing the beauty of the world [and] looking at it through a spectrum of colours, shapes and evocative materials.”
We recently spoke to Cartier's creative director Jacqueline Karachi who has served as gatekeeper to the jewellery maison’s historical designs for four decades about the collection and the inspiration behind the elegant and captivating designs.
What is the starting point when designing a new High Jewellery Collection?
At Cartier, everything starts with the stone. The stone dictates the spirit of the piece and of the collection. They are always at the heart of our creations. We consider all of them as the key to evoking emotions through our High Jewellery pieces.
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Why did you decide to include seven rings in the Beautés du Monde High Jewellery collection?
For the first time, we wanted to bring seven pieces together in order to highlight their relationship. They have been designed as sculptures to form a family of styles covering the Maison’s areas of expression: geometry, movement, colour contrasts, flora and fauna.
What inspired the stone selection?
It is the stone itself which comes from nature. It is one of the most beautiful pieces of art. The hardest part of the process is finding a stone that aligns with Cartier’s criteria of quality. One can find thousands and thousands of stones, but only a select few can be used for our creations. They need to be natural, untreated and come from places with no fight and no political issues.
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Are the designs created with the customer in mind or more as an expression of what you want?
To find the perfect Cartier stone, we travel all around the world with a collector's spirit. A cabinet of curiosité is a collection of many things you collect everywhere, and that’s the spirit of the collection. Cartier has an eye for beauty. You can see beauty everywhere if you know how to look for it, how to see it and how to feel it.
At the end when we make a design, the profile of the person who will wear it comes very naturally.
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