Cartier brings nature to life with Chapter 2 of its Nature Sauvage high jewellery

There is such a thing as a ‘Cartier style’ that is simultaneously certain and amorphous in its definition. Think of it in essence as a bridging of ideas: modernity and heritage, savoir-faire and creativity, figurative and abstract. This Cartier style is expressed fluently in the Parisian maison’s Nature Sauvage collection of high jewellery, which unveiled a second chapter of 36 jewels and two high jewellery objets d’art in Shanghai last year. It continues a story first set out in Vienna, expanding and pushing the boundaries of a jewelled bestiary chez Cartier.

Animal inspirations are treated as more than just figurative representations at this maison. Its most iconic is the famed panther. The earliest known appearance of a panthère was in 1914, as an illustration on an invitation to an exhibition of jewels. In time, the panther took on life as three-dimensional jewels that have grown in detail and life (Cartier designers spend hours at the zoo studying the musculature and movements of big cats). In modern forms, this great feline has been interpreted as variously with curved, rippling muscles or faceted geometric armatures, cats that perch, stretch, recline, gnaw, paw, hug and roar.

The panthère is just one creature. So imagine now the vivacity and variety of the animal kingdom as high jewellery. In Shanghai, the Parisian maison took over the newly refurbished and expanded Bund City Hall Plaza, an extension of the Shanghai Municipal Council Building, to transform its interiors into a wilds for its fantastical creations.

Soaring Aloft

cartier nature sauvage shanghai — Bamboo forest scenography by Cartier, evoking the lightness and movements of the wind. Courtesy of Cartier

The untamed environs of Cartier’s savage nature begins with a bamboo forest. The maison took inspiration from the swaying bamboo forest of Yibin, Sichuan, the largest of its kind in the world. Amid actual bamboo plants, and in vitrines crafted to look like them, was a selection of jewels that embodied lightness. Wings fluttering in the wind, leaves rustling restlessly and creatures taking flight.

cartier high jewellery chryseis necklace — Red, green and black is a signature colour combination of Cartier's, expressed in this Chryseis necklace with rubellites, chalcedony and onyx. Courtesy of Cartier

cartier chryseis necklace savoir faire — Butterflies inspired the hidden-in-plain-sight design of the Chryseis necklace. Courtesy of Cartier

One of the centrepieces of Nature Sauvage’s second chapter is the Chryseis, a necklace inspired by and named after the Bombyx Chryseis family of leopard moths. Speckled among large chalcedony beads are curved triangles, detailed with diamonds and onyx, that simulate their wings, hidden in plain sight. The design, mounted in platinum, is topped off with an impressive 63.76-carat rubellite drop pendant.

cartier paradisier ring — Paradisier ring, set with a cushion-cut 23.69-carat rubellite and with yellow and white diamonds. Courtesy of Cartier

There’s also the Paradisier demi-parure, consisting of a rubellite cocktail ring and earrings, that reflects the gracious flight of a bird of paradise. Its features—head, wings and tail feathers—are captured airily with diamonds set on white gold. On the cocktail ring, yellow diamonds dot the eyes, and the bird’s body is made from an exceptional cushion-cut 23.69-carat rubellite with a mesmerisingly deep reddish purple colour.

Prowling the Lands

The Rainbow Mountains in China, a UNESCO Global Geopark located in Zhangye National Park in Gansu province, inspired the earthbound section of Cartier’s showcase. The site is renowned for its beauty, thanks to the unusual colours and layered formations of its rocks—rather like geographic millefeuille.

Here, Cartier interpreted this marvel of nature with coloured clay vitrines to symbolise transformational beauty. The Nature Sauvage jewels of the land are led by the beguiling Vamana necklace, named after one of the eight world-carrying elephants from Hindu myths and cosmology.

cartier nature sauvage vamana necklace — Simultaneously abstracted and figurative, the Vamana necklace is a geometric expression of an elephant. Courtesy of Cartier

cartier vamana necklace — The design of the Vamana necklace is composed of triangle, lozenge and kite-shaped diamonds, and a pair of subtle emerald eyes. Courtesy of Cartier

It’s a gorgeous display of geometry and abstraction written in the pure palette of diamonds and white gold. Cartier pioneered geometric jewellery in the ’20s with art deco, and it’s obvious that even today this vocabulary of style continues. It is furthered, in fact, by fusing figurative representations with subtle volumes and dimensions. The elephant, and the necklace it’s framed on, is made up of a dazzling array of triangular, lozenge, tapered and round brilliant diamonds. The effect is subtle and delicate, though its genius is unmissable once the eye identifies the creature.

cartier white gugamal tiger four finger ring — The articulated four-finger White Gugamal tiger ring. Courtesy of Cartier

One more remarkable creature of the land: the tiger, Panthera tigris, is rendered in a fully articulated four-finger ring with emerald eyes, and a diamond coat with onyx streaks. Each of the tiger’s four paws rests on a ring, so that when the jewel is worn the feline’s articulated form is animated by movements of the fingers.

Slinking in Water

In the aquatic section of this high jewellery exhibition, the maison took inspiration from the glaciers of the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau. Icy reflections take shape in the vitrines, with transparent, metallic threads that capture the movements of water and the tensions of animals poised within it.

cartier sibaya necklace — The Sibaya necklace abstracts a crocodile into an arrangement of sugarloaf emerald scales. Courtesy of Cartier

cartier high jewellery savoir faire — The raised angles of sugarloaf emeralds and diamond pavé conjure a sense of a crocodile cutting through water. Courtesy of Cartier

cartier sibaya earrings — Matching pair of Sibaya earrings. Courtesy of Cartier

The crocodile, perhaps an amphibious analogue to the maison’s panther, is captured in two remarkable ways in Nature Sauvage. The first is with the Sibaya, named for the South African lake where Nile crocodiles can be found. Cartier combined its love for abstracted geometry and veneration for nature into a supple design that evokes a crocodile’s scaly exterior. A beautifully chosen suite of sugarloaf cabochon emeralds are set in a grid pattern, the sloped shapes of the gemstones chosen to emulate the angles of scales. Among these are a pavé-set motif of diamonds that evoke water flowing past the back of a crocodile. At its centre is a verdant Colombian sugarloaf emerald weighing 7.96 carats.

cartier wani necklace high jewellery — The playful Wani necklace, an expressive alligator guardian of three Zambian emeralds weighing 27.83 carats. Courtesy of Cartier

But perhaps the most expressive and playful of the Cartier bestiary in this second chapter of Nature Sauvage is the Wani, a necklace that takes its name from the Japanese Kanji character for ‘crocodile’. These beasts may be fearsome, but Cartier has endowed the lovely Wani with a sense of playfulness, rendering her sensuously curved, scaled form with a face that bears a coy grin. Her scales are represented with pavé-set calibré emeralds and lozenge-shaped diamonds.

The emeralds, in particular, called for several hundred hours of lapidary work and were cut from a medium-green rough— intense yet radiant to sustain a sense of levity. And unlike a fiercely possessive panther that might guard its centre gemstones, Wani the crocodile instead seems to gesture playfully at her treasure hoard of three Zambian cabochon emerald drops, weighing 27.83 carats in total. These emeralds are wonderfully vivid in hue, and luminous thanks to a fine crystalline structure. Wani the crocodile, poised and pleased, seems almost to ask teasingly: “Do you like it?”

Vogue Singapore’s March 2025 ‘Vigour’ issue is available on newsstands and online.