Cartier Looks East — But Won’t Change Style
Published: August 8, 2012 (Issue # 1721)
FRANCESCO ESCALAR
Actress Monica Bellucci models Cartier’s 2011 collection, ‘Sortilege de Cartier.’
Russian aristocrats and members of the Romanov dynasty were once some of the most important clients for Cartier, one of the world’s most celebrated jewelry brands. In recent decades, however, high jewelry has become accessible to the new emerging elites far beyond Europe. And while Cartier is looking east, and in particular to the fast-developing Chinese market, Russia remains a key focus of the brand’s attention.
Nicolas Roux-Alezais, head of Cartier’s high jewelry division and the Grand Vendeur of the brand — the man who oversees the exclusive individual orders — spoke to The St. Petersburg Times about how emotional creating a piece of jewelry can be, what parallels there are between making a perfume and crafting a necklace, and what the Russian connection means for Cartier today.
While clients in some countries, including China, try to talk Cartier into designing special collections that would speak to the particular tastes and demands of local audiences, Roux-Alezais is adamant that this is not the way the company is going to develop its business.
“However vast a profit it would involve, we will not change our style, and will not create tailor-made collections to placate, say, Chinese, Middle Eastern or Russian customers,” he said. “If we did so, we would resemble a woman who wants to please everyone, which is a silly thing to do. This way, you are sure to lose yourself, and win nothing.”
Cartier designs are recognizable, and the style is carefully preserved.
“When we hire a new artist, we give them time to adapt to our needs, and see for themselves whether they can create within the canons of Cartier,” Roux-Alezais said. “We do not promote names, which is a challenge for ambitious designers, but we need artists to be able to expand the range of Cartier without destroying its unique style.”
Cartier’s immense archives are seen as the lifeblood of the brand, according to Roux-Alezais.
“It is a vital source of inspiration for us,” he said. “At Cartier, we do not look at our history and past as at pages of a book that have been read and therefore we have finished with them. I would say that we achieve our balance by having one foot in the past and the other in the future. We are not in any way overexploiting our past. We remain faithful to our values and to the traditions that allowed Cartier to gain fame.”
Cartier currently has more than 300 boutiques worldwide, and the plan is not to expand vigorously through opening more stores but rather through developing the existing ones.
“The Russian market, in particular, has not yet reached its limit; we see substantial room for growth here,” Roux-Alezais said.
The Russian market remains one of the priorities for the company, though the typical Russian client has changed since the pre-revolutionary era.
In Roux-Alezais’ opinion, so-called New Russians often feel like superheroes and nobodies at the same time. On the one hand, rich people feel powerful, and justifiably so, because their wallet can buy them almost anything. On the other hand, the consequences of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution are still tangible in Russian society, in the sense that many traditions that had laid the foundation of the Russian elite have been lost.
VINCENT WULVERYCK
A ‘Sortilege’ watch.
“The deep trauma inflicted by the 1917 revolution on Russian society is yet to heal,” Roux-Alezais said. “This kind of healing really takes time. In this respect, some Russians are people without a past. The main issue for these people, in my opinion, is to re-embrace the past, to re-appropriate the history of Russia. As a result, you will see yourself as a restored missing link in the many generations of Russian people, and not as a man standing on top of a pyramid but without a clear sense of direction.”
When a client approaches the Grand Vendeur about an exclusive order, a good place to start the journey is to find out whether the piece is meant to reflect a particular emotion. If so, this emotion serves as a tuning fork.
“Not every customer is willing to build an emotional connection; indeed, if you open your heart, it makes you vulnerable — by making a declaration about a particular feeling we admit we are ready to suffer,” Roux-Alezais said.
Creating an exclusive piece, a process that may take up to five years, is a task that is both highly challenging and exciting.
“It is about helping a person to get to know themselves deeper and better than they did before. Here, we do not talk in terms of ‘whether I like a particular ring, whether it suits me.’ It is about conceiving a work of art, which is no less a miracle than conceiving a child and giving birth to a human being.”
For Roux-Alezais, who used to run Cartier’s perfume department, the links and similarities between creating a new scent and making an item of jewelry are numerous.
“A scent carries the most intimate information about a person, and in this respect it is unique,” he said. “In a way, perfume appeals directly to the human soul. The same thing can safely be said about a work of jewelry, as it also makes it possible to tell a story. And, just as with a perfume, the story can be as sophisticated as the owner wants to make it.”
On a more material note, Cartier is keen to play up the perfumery connection.
In the Cartier 2011 collection, “Sortilege de Cartier,” which saw its world premiere in Rome, the arts of perfumery and jewelry were united in magnificent pendants designed in the shape of a perfume bottle.
At the same time, the ironic red bottle for the Delices de Cartier perfume was inspired by the design of a 1920s brooch from the company’s archives.
A significant proportion of Cartier’s new customers tend to view high jewelry as primarily a safe investment, as opposed to the core of the customers that the jewelry house had in the first half of the 20th century, when clients sought a particular aesthetic that they appreciated in Cartier.
“At Cartier, we regard jewelry as a work of art, and, quite honestly, we would like for our clients to share that view,” Roux-Alezais said.
With that goal in mind, in recent years the jewelry brand has adopted a policy of educating its clients about the aesthetics, traditions and philosophy of Cartier. “Some of the people who obtained their fortunes fast often live in a rather narrow world; they may not possess a developed artistic taste and they feel uncertain about their choices. We feel it is one of our responsibilities to offer them support.”