WEBINARS
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Ep 10: The Cartiers and their Pearls
Francesca Cartier Brickell discusses The Cartiers and the remarkable story of the family behind the iconic jewelry empire.
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Ep 10: The Cartiers and their Pearls
What is the most valuable object in the world?
Francesca Cartier Brickell discusses The Cartiers and the remarkable story of the family behind the iconic jewelry empire.
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Ep 9: The Cartiers and the Maharajas - Part II
His house party, said the papers, would make the Arabian Nights look insipid.
The extraordinary commissions and legendary jewels created for Indian royalty, including the Patiala Necklace and the deep relationships between the Cartier brothers and the maharajas.
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Ep 8: The Cartiers and the Maharajas - Part I
At the 1906 royal wedding in Madrid, a bomb detonated during the procession and the newlyweds fled their carriage covered in blood. A maharaja in the crowd — sheltering in a nearby café — glanced across the room and fell in love with the Spanish dancer performing on the small stage. She would become his maharani.
How the Cartier brothers built relationships with Indian princes and maharajas, exploring the cultural exchange and the remarkable jewels that emerged from these royal commissions.
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Ep 7: The Cartiers and The British Crown - Part II
He came through the back door.
The continued relationship between Cartier and British royalty, including the iconic commissions and the firm's role as royal jeweler to multiple generations.
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Ep 6: The Cartiers and The British Crown - Part I
In November 1936, the Duke of York walked into Cartier London and bought a diamond scroll tiara. Within months he would be King. The tiara would be worn by four Queens and Princesses — and on Catherine Middleton's wedding morning, seventy-five years later.
The special relationship between the Cartier brothers and the British royal family, from Edward VII's patronage to the most famous royal commissions.
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Ep 5: The Cartiers and Their Clocks
For a clock to be described as a mystery clock, the hands must appear to float in mid-air with no visible connection to the movement. Each one took months to create. When the Duchess of Westminster discovered her husband had been unfaithful, she hurled hers across the room. It shattered into a thousand pieces.
The artistry and innovation behind Cartier's mystery clocks and timepieces, exploring how the brothers revolutionized clock design and created some of the most iconic pieces.
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Ep 4: The Cartiers and Marjorie Merriweather Post
When Maisie Plant walked into Cartier's New York showroom, she fell in love with the most expensive pearl necklace in the world — valued at one million dollars. Her husband happened to own a Fifth Avenue mansion worth exactly the same. Pierre Cartier and Morton Plant agreed on a swap: Mrs. Plant got the pearls, Cartier got the keys. When cultured pearls later collapsed the natural pearl market, the necklace became worth a fraction of its original price. The building, today, is priceless.
The fascinating story of one of America's wealthiest heiresses and her extraordinary relationship with Cartier, including her legendary collection of jewels and objets d'art.
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Ep 3: The Cartiers and The Romanovs
When Grand Duchess Vladimir fled Russia, her jewels were still in the palace. Her friend Albert Stopford — suspected of being an English spy — walked back into a city in revolution, dressed as a worker, and made his way to her empty home. He filled two bags with newspapers and hid the Vladimir jewels inside them. Outside, people were being shot in the streets.
The dramatic story of Cartier's relationship with the Russian Imperial family, from the height of their patronage to the revolution and the dispersal of the legendary Romanov jewels.
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Ep 2: The Cartiers and The Maharajas
Jacques Cartier spent one morning on a pearl-fishing boat in the Persian Gulf. The divers went down again and again and could barely find a single good pearl between them. Back in Baroda, the Maharaja had a necklace of seven perfectly matched strands — a thousand natural pearls — assembled over more than a decade. It was said to be the finest pearl necklace in the world.
An introduction to the legendary relationship between Cartier and the Indian princes, setting the stage for the extraordinary commissions and cultural exchange that would follow.
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Ep 1: The Cartiers: The Untold Story
She went to the cellar to fetch a bottle of champagne for her grandfather's 90th birthday. She couldn't find it. But in the corner, under yellowing newspapers, was an old leather case with the initials J.C. embossed on it — the initials of her great-grandfather, Jacques Cartier. Inside were hundreds of letters stretching back over a hundred years. She had been looking for champagne. She had found the story of her family.
Francesca Cartier Brickell introduces her book and the remarkable true story of her great-great-grandfather and his brothers, who transformed a small Parisian workshop into a global luxury empire.
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The Cartiers: Bejewelled India
How a 27-year-old Jacques Cartier sailed to India for the 1911 Delhi Durbar — and changed the house's aesthetic forever.
In 1911, the youngest Cartier brother, Jacques, sailed to India for the Delhi Durbar with a pearl expert and gem-laden bags. The maharajas he met on those early trips would shape Cartier's designs — and its fortunes — for decades.
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The Cartiers: Watches
How Cartier invented the men's wristwatch in the early 20th century and made it fashionable.
Cartier began making men's wristwatches in the early twentieth century, at a time when wristwatches were considered women's jewellery and men wore pocket watches. This short film explores how the Cartiers created a new category and persuaded men to wear one.
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The Cartiers and their Watches
Cartier watches spanning a century of design, as seen at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
A look at Cartier watches from the early 1900s onward, filmed at the Victoria and Albert Museum exhibition. From the first wristwatches to mid-century designs, many still wearable today.
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The Cartiers and their Clocks
How the Cartiers turned clockmaking into an art form — from mystery clocks to the most technically demanding commissions of the early twentieth century.
A short film tracing Cartier's clock-making history, from the mystery clocks created with Maurice Couet to the extraordinary commissions that pushed the limits of what a clock could be. Filmed to accompany the book.
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Inspiration and the Cartiers: Never Copy, Only Create
The guiding principle Jean-Jacques Cartier inherited — and what it meant in practice for the London branch.
Jean-Jacques Cartier's defining creative principle, as told by his granddaughter Francesca. 'Never Copy, Only Create' shaped every commission the London branch took on, from the Crash to the Pebble.
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The Impossible Jewel: Reuniting Cartier London's Masterpiece with its Makers
Jean-Jacques Cartier's proudest creation: the stag's head brooch commissioned by Princess Lilian de Réthy in 1966.
Francesca traces the story of the jewel her grandfather Jean-Jacques Cartier described as his greatest achievement: a full three-dimensional stag's head brooch, entirely covered in gems, made in 1966 for Princess Lilian de Réthy as a 25th anniversary gift.
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Cartier Stories: Tutti Frutti Origins and Pierre's Great Depression Marketing
Where Tutti Frutti came from, and how Pierre Cartier kept the firm alive through the Depression.
An interview tracing two connected stories: the Indian origins of Cartier's Tutti Frutti jewels — the carved rubies, emeralds, and sapphires that became synonymous with the firm's style — and how Pierre Cartier navigated the Great Depression with unconventional marketing that kept New York's doors open.
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Jacques Cartier: A 100-Year Legacy of Bahraini Pearls
How Jacques Cartier's pearl-buying trips to Bahrain shaped the firm's entire jewellery vocabulary for decades.
Jacques Cartier made multiple trips to Bahrain to buy natural pearls directly from the trading families there. This film explores his legacy in the region and the extraordinary role Bahraini pearls played in Cartier's most celebrated jewels.
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Jacques Cartier's Travels to the Middle East in Search of Pearls
The youngest Cartier brother crossed to Bahrain and the Gulf repeatedly to source the natural pearls that would define a generation of Cartier jewels.
Jacques Cartier's pearl-buying expeditions to the Middle East, and the trading networks he built there, were central to Cartier's ability to produce the great pearl jewels of the early twentieth century. This short film traces those journeys.
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Recreating History: Jacques Cartier and the Pearl Trading Families of Bahrain
The families Jacques Cartier dealt with in Bahrain — and what it looked like when that history was brought to life again a century later.
A film recreating the pearl-trading encounters between Jacques Cartier and the Bahraini merchant families he visited in the early twentieth century. Shot in Bahrain with the descendants of those families.
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Francesca Cartier Brickell Visiting Bahrain and Jewelry Arabia
Francesca retracing her great-grandfather Jacques Cartier's steps in Bahrain, visiting Jewelry Arabia.
Francesca Cartier Brickell visits Bahrain — where Jacques Cartier came to buy natural pearls — and attends Jewelry Arabia, connecting the family's historical pearl-trading journeys with the region today.
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How Cartier's New York Store Was Swapped for Maisie Plant's Pearl Necklace
Pierre Cartier traded a double-strand natural pearl necklace for the Vanderbilt mansion on Fifth Avenue — the deal that gave Cartier New York its home.
In 1917, Pierre Cartier traded a double-strand natural pearl necklace, valued at around one million dollars, for the Morton Plant mansion at 653 Fifth Avenue. Maisie Plant wanted the necklace; Cartier wanted the building. The exchange became one of the most famous transactions in jewellery history.
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The Cartiers at the Victoria and Albert Museum
Francesca at the V&A, where a major exhibition brought together some of the Cartier family's most celebrated pieces.
Francesca Cartier Brickell at the Victoria and Albert Museum, where a major exhibition on the Cartiers and their jewels brought together pieces spanning more than a century of the family's work.
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