From the moment I met the legendary Cartier designer Alfred Durante, he welcomed me like family. "I knew it was you when I saw you walking down the street" were the first words he uttered as he opened the door with a warm smile.
"You had to be a Cartier — I recognise your features!" And that was the thing about Alfred: he had started out at Cartier NY in the 1950s and had known my family first-hand.
Over many chats that followed, Alfred patiently answered an endless stream of questions.
I was researching the story of The Cartiers and he always made time to help — showing me this flower brooch sketch he had drawn aged 16 at his Cartier interview, and sharing outrageous anecdotes of working for the dashing Claude Cartier (the son of Louis, Claude was my grandfather's cousin who sold Cartier NY in 1962 without telling his family).
Alfred described growing up in the design studio above the Fifth Avenue showroom, apprenticing under top French designers, and designing jewels for the Duchess of Windsor, Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe. "To say I was intimidated at first would be putting it mildly…
But I found they became comfortable, and I became comfortable, when I learned to let them do the talking, and responded with my sketches, giving life to their jewellery dreams." After leaving Cartier as VP of Design & Production, Alfred became a successful independent designer. "I'm so grateful to your family," he said in his modest way.
"How else could a boy from Brooklyn have all these opportunities?" He was fascinating to speak to because his career spanned decades of vast change in America, at Cartier and in the luxury industry. But more than that, he was kind and fun, and he became a friend.
The last time I saw Alfred was when The Cartiers was released. He came to a New York launch event with his husband Will and was the last to leave — clutching his copy of the book, supportive to the end. When we later went for a quiet lunch uptown, he told me — like a father-figure — how proud he was and how the story had needed to be told.
It meant so much coming from him and I miss him enormously.
Rest in peace, Alfred Durante, 1937–2022.
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