A fascinating history of the Cartier family, fabled Parisian jewellers

A fascinating account of the fabled Parisian jewellers recounted by the founder's descendant offers an in-depth study of how to run a durable family business

Big businesses often have fascinating beginnings. John Pemberton, for instance, came up with an early version of Coca-Cola as a cure for his morphine addiction. Joe Foster settled on the name Reebok after he came across the word “rhebok” — Afrikaans for a type of antelope — in a South African dictionary he had won in a race as a boy. The founders of HP flipped a coin to decide whether their company would be called Hewlett-Packard, or the other way round.

By comparison, Cartier’s origins are uninteresting. Adamant that his son mustn’t follow him in the metalworking industry, Pierre Cartier helped Louis-Francois secure an apprenticeship at a jewellery workshop owned by one Benjamin Picard, a popular craftsman in Paris. The ambitious and hard-working Louis-Francois later took over the workshop, and Cartier was born.

What is far more exciting is the journey that followed. In 1847, Louis-Francois would have seldom imagined that his modest Parisian jewellery store would go on to become a sterling symbol of luxury, with stores on every high-end shopping street in the world and a list of clients that would include the Romanovs, Edward VII, Elizabeth II, Coco Chanel, Marilyn Monroe and Grace Kelly — a company story so fabulously extravagant that it is perhaps unrivalled in all of modern business history.

Francesca Cartier Brickell, the great-great-great granddaughter of Louis-Francois, experienced much of this opulence first-hand. Her grandfather, Jean-Jacques, was the last of the family to manage a branch of the business, before the entire enterprise was sold in the 1970s. The Cartiers: The Untold Story of the Family behind the Jewelry Empire by Brickell is a documentation of one of the richest families on the planet, as well as a glimpse into some of the most precious jewellery ever made, from Wallis Simpson’s panther bracelet — which sold for $7 million at Sotheby’s in 2010 — to the 500-year-old La Peregrina pearl that famously last belonged to Elizabeth Taylor, and fetched a stupefying $11.8 million at an auction nine years ago.

The 500-year-old La Peregrina that famously last belonged to actor Elizabeth Taylor. Photo: Reuters

For Brickell, the inspiration for a book on the family’s business empire came some years ago when she stumbled on a dusty leather trunk full of old letters in her grandfather’s wine cellar in the south of France. The letters offered a rich and detailed account of her ancestors’ many royal associations and subsequent world domination.

Royal patronage, after all, has been a huge part of Cartier’s success. In 1856, Louis-Francois opened his doors to Princess Mathilde Bonaparte, a cousin of Napoleon III, and a member of the Parisian elite whose mansion regularly played host to discussions that featured Alexandre Dumas, Guy de Maupassant and Gustave Flaubert. Mathilde would go on to become a regular customer and also award Cartier its first brevet (royal warrant) — recognition that would help the Cartiers gain entry into palaces all over the world, a rarefied position they continue to enjoy even today.  

The Cartier tiara that Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, wore at her wedding. Photo: Reuters

If Louis-Francois was the architect of the business’s early triumphs, it was truly expanded by his three grandsons, Louis, Pierre and Jacques. The book features a brilliant passage on how Louis, a visionary designer keen on extending the company’s pursuits beyond jewellery, came up with one of the first-ever wristwatches for men. The story goes that his friend, the legendary Brazilian aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont, demanded a timepiece that would allow him to look at the time without having to take his hands off the controls.

Wristwatches were a decorative item worn only by women at the time, and Louis had to come up with a unique design that was both functional and good to look at. First made in 1904, the watch, named in honour of Santos-Dumont, is still among Cartier’s bestsellers, retailing at $11,800.

The Cartiers makes for a compelling read because of Brickell’s ability to artfully juxtapose the family’s fortunes with the economic and political conditions prevalent at the time. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870, for example, dented the company’s early progress. Another significant blow was the Russian Revolution — the abolition of the monarchy meant that Cartier lost one of its most loyal clients, the Grand Duchess Vladimir, daughter-in-law of Tsar Alexander II. Prince Felix Yusupov, best known for his involvement in the assassination of Grigori Rasputin, was another famous customer who fled Saint Petersburg during the turmoil, but eventually ended up clandestinely selling many of his jewels through Cartier. This very discretion has been a Cartier hallmark down the years, one that has enabled the company to ensure exclusivity despite garnering widespread popularity.  

A modern version of the Santos-Dumont watch, among the first-ever wristwatches for men. Photo: Reuters

Later, Cartier became popular among wealthy Americans, only for the relationship to hit rough weather with the arrival of the Great Depression. Similarly tough were the years post World War II, when diamond designs underwent a massive shift. 

Cartier, as Brickell explains, has not only survived such tumultuous times but also stayed at the top of its industry through constant reinvention. Not to mention how it has always been able to forge favourable alliances. Writing about Louis, Brickell says that he was forced into marriage with Andrée-Caroline Worth — the “mentally unsound” granddaughter of the founder of the iconic House of Worth — because his father insisted that the union would be beneficial for their business.

Company founder Louis-Francois Cartier

Such details lend the book terrific depth, but also make it tedious in parts. Brickell’s painstaking research into her family’s past is praiseworthy, but The Cartiers is way too long for its subject, carrying the kind of excruciating detail that will not interest all readers. Instead of conjuring up lengthy portraits of all the family patriarchs, the book would have been better served, perhaps, to have included more anecdotes, such as the famous one about the disappearance of La Peregrina from Elizabeth Taylor’s hotel suite, only for her to later retrieve it from her dog’s mouth.

That aside, The Cartiers is quite a study in how to run a family enterprise. Successful ones that last over a century are extremely rare, with large families often having to deal with ego tussles and power struggles at every turn. That’s why Brickell’s effort is a dazzling testament to the members of her family, who, through unmatched artistry and smart salesmanship, seem to have left behind a legacy every bit as resilient as so many of their breathtaking diamonds.

The Cartiers: The Untold Story of the Family behind the Jewelry Empire; Author: Francesca; Cartier Brickell; Publisher: Ballantine Books; Price: Rs 799; Pages: 625