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THE CARTIERS

Francesca Cartier Brickell

The Untold Story of the Family Behind the Jewelry Empire

The captivating story of the family behind Cartier and the three brothers who turned their grandfather’s humble Parisian jewelry store into a global luxury icon—as told by a great-granddaughter with exclusive access to long-lost family archives

The Cartiers is the revealing tale of a jewelry dynasty—four generations, from revolutionary France to the 1960s. At its heart are the three Cartier brothers whose motto was “Never copy, only create” and who made their family firm internationally famous in the early days of the twentieth century, thanks to their unique and complementary talents: Louis, the visionary designer who created the first men’s wristwatch to help an aviator friend tell the time without taking his hands off the controls of his flying machine; Pierre, the master dealmaker who bought the New York headquarters on Fifth Avenue for a double-stranded natural pearl necklace; and Jacques, the globe-trotting gemstone expert whose travels to India gave Cartier access to the world’s best rubies, emeralds, and sapphires, inspiring the celebrated Tutti Frutti jewelry.


Francesca Cartier Brickell, whose great-grandfather was the youngest of the brothers, has traveled the world researching her family’s history, tracking down those connected with her ancestors and discovering long-lost pieces of the puzzle along the way. Now she reveals never-before-told dramas, romances, intrigues, betrayals, and more. 


The Cartiers also offers a behind-the-scenes look at the firm’s most iconic jewelry—the notoriously cursed Hope Diamond, the Romanov emeralds, the classic panther pieces—and the long line of stars from the worlds of fashion, film, and royalty who wore them, from Indian maharajas and Russian grand duchesses to Wallis Simpson, Coco Chanel, and Elizabeth Taylor. 


Published in the two-hundredth anniversary year of the birth of the dynasty’s founder, Louis-François Cartier, this book is a magnificent, definitive, epic social history shown through the deeply personal lens of one legendary family.

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Published 2019-11-01 by Ballantine Books

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fascinating account of the Cartier brothers and the creation of this iconic and enduring luxury brand.” —André Leon Talley, bestselling author of A.L.T.: A Memoir


The Cartiers is the glittering saga of one of the globe’s most iconic jewelry dynasties, beautifully recounted by a direct descendant of the company’s founders. With her insider’s understanding of the family business, a historian’s precision, and a novelist’s keen eye for personal detail, Francesca Cartier Brickell has created a seeming contradiction: an epic yet personal chronicle. Through extensive research, including never-before-seen family archives, correspondence, and personal interviews, the author reflects not only on the accomplishments, joys, and heartaches of one illustrious family, but on two centuries of European and American culture, politics, business, economics, and personal mores. The Cartiers, in fact, demonstrates that hidden within the history of design and fashion is always also the history of the world at large.” —Rhonda K. Garelick, dean of the School of Art and Design History and Theory, Parsons, author of Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History


“A telling social history of the first half of the twentieth century in Paris, London, and New York, all through the lens of luxury and all that it entails. While the diamonds, emeralds, and sapphires are indeed stunning, it is the Cartier family characters who steal the show in this gem of a book.” —Sonia Purnell, New York Times bestselling author of A Woman of No Importance


“For more than a century, the name Cartier has been synonymous with glamour, wealth, style, and exquisite craftsmanship. Through the long-lost letters and journals of her ancestors, Francesca Cartier Brickell tells the intimate story of how her family’s business conquered the world of luxury in the face of revolution, wars, and global depression. The Cartiers is an enchanting jewel of a book.” —Douglas Smith, author of Former People: The Final Days of the Russian Aristocracy

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“Four generations of genius, glamour, and ambition are laid bare in Brickell's behind-the-scenes account of the Cartier family. Part social history, part affectionate memoir, The Cartiers is a pleasurable stroll through the glittering byways of a more elegant age.” —Amanda Foreman, New York Times bestselling author of A World on Fire 

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