Worth A Read Yes
Length 656
Quick Review Not only is it a history of an incredible family, it’s a history of the world and how they changed it through their creative genius, and kindness.
Cartier has come to signify opulence and timelessness. The brand continues to be one of the most globally recognizable. It all started with Louis-François Cartier in Paris in 1847. The family history of the great jewelry brand is told in The Cartiers by one of the founders direct descendants. Francesca Cartier Brickell is the great-great-great granddaughter of Louis-François Cartier and granddaughter to the last Cartier to control the family business. The book began when Brickell found a long lost box of letters hidden in the wine cellar at her grandfather’s birthday party. Brickell began reading and piecing together her family’s history like the beautiful mystery it is.
Cartier had humble beginnings. Louis-François Cartier grew up poor and learned the trade before fighting to open his own store. His son Alfred joined the business, helping it grow into something larger and more renowned. Louis, Pierre, and Jacques, Alfred’s three sons, joined the company; they would be the people who took the company from nationally beloved to a global powerhouse.
The reason Cartier became Cartier is because of their dedication to kindness and discretion. Kindness was of the utmost importance from the company’s origins, “”Be very kind,” Louis-François would advise his son, Alfred, outlining a key tenet of his life’s philosophy.” A willingness to adopt new technologies also played an integral role, “Cartier was one of the first firms to have electricity in Paris.” They were able to create new technologies, which enabled them to create stunning jewelry never seen before. It also helped that the Cartier children made advantageous marriages within the fashion and aristocratic elite. The atmosphere also created the company, “Cartier became like an extended family as staff were united by their shared experiences. It wasn’t just the designers, craftsmen, and salesmen who became close, but their wives and children too.” Fathers and sons would work side-by-side in the workshops and sales floors. The Cartiers were able to find talent and nurture it in each other and their craftsmen.
Family came first in the Cartier family, and they were unified. The company lasted three generations. The fourth did not grow up together, so they did not have the same affinity for family unity their fathers had. It would eventually be their downfall.
Francesca Cartier Brickell does an amazing job pulling the reader into the story. Her personal investment in the history she told seeps through every word. She talks about her ancestors with compassion and reverence even when she tells the uglier sides of the story. She shares amazing anecdotes about the clients who frequented and who famously did not. There is a focus on the third generation with the three brothers and their contributions. Louis, Pierre, and Jacques were all visionaries in their own right. It was the generation which made Cartier iconic, but it is also the generation she had a connection to. Her grandfather was the eldest son of Jacques, and she learned much through conversations with him.
The book contains beautiful moments of insight into the family’s life. Brickell excerpts from letters between the family and other significant people in their lives. There are boxes containing “Conversations with Jean-Jacques,” Brickell’s grandfather, the last Cartier to run the business. These moments give Jean-Jacques’ personal opinions, thoughts on jewelry pieces, the family, business, history, and more. They are poignant and beautiful. Cartier is known for spectacular jewelry worn by the wealthiest and most important people in history. Jewelry spotlights discuss some of the most unique, challenging or memorable pieces they made.
One of the most repeated phrases in the book was the phase upheld by the company and the family, “Never copy, only create.” They drew inspiration from the world, history, and other cultures, but they never copied or drew inspiration from other jewelry or designers. Creating was their purpose in life, and they did just that.
The Cartiers is a story of the world’s elite social and political life as much as it is the story of the Cartier family and business. Francesca Cartier Brickell paints a beautiful story of a complicated family who defied the odds to become the greatest craftsmen in the world to create for Kings and Presidents and Sultans and the wealthiest men and women in the world.
Fun Fact The New York office, still standing and used today, was traded for a pearl necklace. The necklace was traded on behalf of Maisie Plant by her husband Morton Plant in 1916. The necklace would go on to be a fraction of the price a few years later because cultured pearls were created. The trade for the building on 5th Avenue was one of the savviest business deals made by Cartier and possibly in history. “…it wasn’t as absurd as it sounds today. Buildings, after all, could be built or rebuilt, but finding a perfect natural pearl could take months, even years. And finding enough good-quality perfectly matched pearls for a necklace, well, that could take decades.” Jean-Jacques Cartier
Memorable Quotes
“Every piece was unique.”
“Despite the widespread changes in society after the First World War, an innate snobbery persisted in blue-blooded aristocratic circles.”
“Never copy, only create.”
bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna
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Title: The Cartiers; The Untold Story of the Family Behind the Jewelry Empire
Author: Francesca Cartier Brickell
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Copyright: 2019
ISBN: 9780525351614
