A crocodile curls around the wrist, a tiger stretches across the hand and a parrot emerges in coral, onyx and tsavorite garnets. Cartier’s latest high jewellery chapter, Into the Wild, draws on the Maison’s long fascination with the animal kingdom, this time with Tilda Swinton as its suitably unconventional protagonist.
The Panthère remains present, of course, but here it shares the spotlight with rhinoceroses, carp, crocodiles and vividly rendered birds, transformed through sculptural goldwork, lacquer, ornamental stones and extraordinary settings of diamonds, sapphires and emeralds. Beneath their more fantastical qualities sits serious technical ingenuity, with articulated necklaces and bracelets engineered to move around the body and clasps concealed within the creatures themselves.
Swinton, newly appointed as a global ambassador for Cartier, lends the collection a cool strangeness that feels entirely in step with its character, bringing a sense of theatre without tipping into spectacle. The result is Cartier at its most imaginative, taking the familiar language of high jewellery somewhere decidedly wilder.
