A passion for diamonds

The world-famous Parisian jewellery house celebrates the festive season with a short film that pays testament to Cartier diamonds with a showcase of the jeweller’s legendary gemstones. Directed by Johan Renck and starring British model and singer Karen Elson, the film is now available to view on the Internet.

The brand recently launched the film at Plaza Athenee Bangkok along with a fashion showcase of its diamonds collection. 

“Magic of Diamonds” is a spellbinding 90-second whirlwind of music and images with the vibrant Elson lending her voice to this rendition of the cult song “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend”, written in 1949 by Jule Styne and Leo Robin and reimagined for this film by Jarvis Cocker. Set to a lively upbeat tempo, the film is a delicious interpretation of an exhilarating, ultra- modern fresco depicting the full range of emotions experienced by a woman when she slips a Cartier diamond ring onto her finger.

From Place Vendome to the Grand Palais, Paris enhances this reverie with the beauty and elegance of its avenues, squares and facades with the tale unfolding under the watchful eye of Cartier’s instantly recognisable panther.

Cartier is equally famous for other diamonds. At the 27th Biennale de Paris, the jewellery house showcased the “Star of the South” diamond. This was the first gemstone-quality diamond, and was cut in Amsterdam in a pear shape, then mounted in a brooch by Cartier New York in the late 1910s. Found by a Griqua shepherd boy in 1869 on the banks of the Orange River, it was sold to a farmer from Hopetown for 500 sheep, 10 bullocks and a horse.

Other equally well-known gems include the 69.42-carat diamond Richard Burton bought for his actress wife, the late Elizabeth Taylor, which required her to be escorted by three bodyguards in Monaco when she wore the jewel for the first time on European soil on the occasion of Princess Grace’s birthday. Originally from South Africa, this stone, today known as the Cartier-Burton-Taylor, was first purchased by Cartier in 1969 for a price that exceeded US$1 million, a then-record, at public auction.

The Louis Cartier diamond is a 107.07-carat, pear-shaped, colourless and flawless stone. Insured for $5 million, it has been described as “as big as a baby’s fist” and was cut from a 400-carat raw diamond discovered in South Africa in 1974. It is one of the very few gems of more than 100 carats to have received a D certificate (Flawless) from the Gemological Institute of America.

The 1,000-carat total weight of the Maharaja Sir Bhupindar Singh of Patiala’s ceremonial necklace, an extraordinary order placed in 1928, was composed of 2,930 diamonds and featured as its centrepiece an exceptional 234.69-carat yellow diamond that was presented in Paris during the Universal Exhibition of 1889. It was the largest necklace ever produced by Cartier.

And then there was the Jubilee. One of the largest and most famous white diamonds in the world when it was discovered in South Africa in 1895, it was transformed by lapidaries in Amsterdam to 88 facets. Also presented in Paris during the Universal Exhibition, it was re-worked at Cartier by Jeanne Toussaint, who designed a modern and stylised tortoise-shaped brooch in which the magnificent 245.35- carat diamond centrepiece was surrounded by baguette-cut diamonds.

In 2015, the quest for radiant jewellery continues, with an exceptional pear shaped diamond of 63.66 carats combined with the power of rock crystal into a unique bracelet that required more than 2,000 hours of work to bring to life. At Cartier, the excellence of the gemstones is answered by the perfection of craftsmanship sustained by the exacting standards of the eye and hand.