Cartier is a brand that has always been a little bit mysterious to me. Whether it be at watch events or simply by looking online I seem to always stumble across different watches, from the objectively beautiful to the different and wonderful.
Trying Cartier watches on, they never seem to quite do it for me – at least not the models that are available – and there have been very few over the years that I’ve tried on that I thought suited me and my wrist. Which is especially annoying because I want to like them more than it appears that I do.
I started to wonder whether if I knew more about these watches, and perhaps took to learn more of the history behind the famous Cartier brand, that it might give me a new perspective and perhaps that that education might help to change my mind. After a while of searching around at the different options, I decided to go with ‘The Cartiers – The Untold Story of the Family Behind the Jewelry Empire’ by Francesca Cartier Brickell.
Whilst I originally went into this book with the aim of learning more about Cartier watches and the history of the brand, I ended up being taken on a somewhat different journey altogether, but one that is beautifully well written and could be worthy of a Hollywood movie!
The Cartiers – The Untold Story of the Family Behind the Jewelry Empire by Francesca Cartier Brickell
The Cartiers by Francesca Cartier Brickell
I wasn’t quite prepared for, nor expecting, the journey that this book would take me on – the journey of author Francesca Cartier Brickell’s ancestors, who in four generations went from Pierre, a prisoner held in Portsmouth during the Napoleonic Wars who was freed in 1815 at 28 years old with nothing to his name, to his great grandchildren Louis, Pierre and Jacques Cartier, three brothers who ran the most famous jewellery house in the entire world barely a century later.
Above all, this is a story with the people at its heart. Indeed, Francesca Cartier Brickell recounts that the idea of the book was born of a chance discovery she made during a visit to her grandfather, Jean-Jacques Cartier, discovering a trunk filled with family correspondences, letters from a bygone era, when searching for a bottle of champagne.
It was interesting to me that despite the family knowing of the historical role their ancestors played the brand we know today, it wasn’t something they often discussed, and that Jean-Jacques Cartier had to be somewhat encouraged to share his story. However, knowing what I do now, I can understand more why he had felt that way.
After discovering the long-lost trunk, Cartier Brickell spent a decade researching and delving into the history of her own ancestors, even travelling the world to meet and speak with the descendants of those her own ancestors knew so well. The result tells the truest account of her family’s history that she could, supported of course by her beloved grandfather, who was the last of the Cartier family to be directly involved in the eponymous firm.
This story begins with Pierre, who returned to Paris in 1815 and went on to have a family, setting the wheels in motion by securing an apprenticeship for his son, Louis-François, within the jewellery trade. By the time Louis-François’ own grandchildren enter the stage, the Cartier family are renowned globally – no mean feat in the early 1900s – having travelled not only across Europe, but to India, Asia and Russia, as well as to the United States and even South America.
One thing I realised is that I think it is difficult to overstate just how big Cartier were. Speaking to my Nan about this book after I had finished it, I asked her about her awareness of Cartier when she was growing up, and she was telling me about Louis Cartier and how back then, Cartier was most certainly the jeweller.
Realising the dream of building the Cartier brand into what it became was no easy feat, especially when faced with revolutions, recessions, the Great Depression, and two World Wars. But equally, the story is also full of glitz and glamour, diamonds and pearls, emeralds and rubies, Kings and Queens, Emperors and Maharajas, Hollywood superstars and politicians, the Roaring Twenties and Art Deco, and of course some of the most famous jewels in history such as the Hope Diamond.
The Hope Diamond was once sold by Pierre Cartier for the sum of $180,000 (about $5 million today)
As the three Cartier brothers built their empire on the foundations provided by their father and grandfather before them, expanding from Paris into London and New York, ‘The Cartiers’ tells a deeply personal and touching story, full of the family’s trials, tribulations, and anecdotes – including how Pierre Cartier acquired Cartier’s Fifth Avenue mansion in New York in exchange for a pearl necklace!
I might not have come away from this book having educated myself on Cartier watches, but what I gained from this book was more than I could have hoped – the Cartier story. I certainly won’t look at the New Bond Street boutique of Cartier the same way next time I visit; having learned some of the stories of those who worked here tirelessly, and what they contributed to the story of Cartier, gifts an entirely new perspective through which to experience the boutique. I also look forward to one day visiting 13 Rue de la Paix in Paris to appreciate the same.
Through reading this, there are a great many lessons to be taken from how the family realised their dream together, and you cannot help but become absolutely engrossed in the stories of each of the individuals, and from the highs of the glitz and glam to the lows of family tragedy and loss.
The magnitude of effort that has gone into putting this book together shows, Francesca Cartier Brickell has done a wonderful job telling her ancestors’ story both beautifully and sensitively, and I think this is something that anybody could, and would, enjoy tremendously.
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