Cartier’s New High Jewelry Collection Is a Banquet of Color

It is said that money cannot buy happiness, and maybe that’s true—but, as a WAG once put it, it can certainly buy some pretty remarkable substitutes. The Cartier presentation of its high jewelry Coloratura collection in Paris takes place the day after the house hosts a cocktail party on a boat in dry dock on the Seine, a fete that features cheese soufflés and eclairs, a band that plays an enthusiastic cover version of Jessie J’s “Price Tag,” and a long wait—but so worth it!—to see the Tour Eiffel fizz and pop and explode in glitter at 11:00 p.m., when the Paris skies have finally sufficiently darkened.

The Eiffel Tower was erected in 1889, to serve as the gateway to the World’s Fair. It was not, at least initially, universally embraced—a committee of 300 outraged artists and writers called it “useless and monstrous . . . stretching like a blot of ink the hateful shadow of the hateful column of bolted sheet metal.” Ten years later, Louis Cartier would open the Cartier shop on Rue de la Paix, a fin de siècle masterpiece that no one dared criticize, and to this day reigning as queen over that illustrious avenue.

This season, Cartier looks backward and forward. The high jewelry on display—in addition to the vitrines, mannequins in ball gowns also flaunt jewels—offers the unexpected color combinations the maison is justly famous for, along with a number of clever pieces that can be worn in multiple ways: necklaces deconstruct into bracelets; headbands transform into necklaces. Many of the works on display are influenced by the aesthetic of the Far East, a Cartier fascination that dates back to the earliest years of the company.

There is a tendency at this sort of presentation to wander around and answer that little voice in your head that says, Lynnie, you can have just one thing here—go ahead and pick! And so I settle on a ring—and though it comes with matching necklace, headband, bracelets, and (spectacular) earrings, doesn’t that seem greedy? So just the one little bauble please! Made of 18-karat white gold, it has art deco coral and diamond accents, and its centerpiece is a 7.45-carat square-shaped diamond, laid—surprise!—on the diagonal.

Alas, there is no trying on.

Cartier’s New Coloratura High Jewelry Collection, As Its Name Suggests, Is a Banquet of Color