When Etourdissant Cartier made its world debut in Singapore, Cartier’s image, strategy and heritage director, Pierre Rainero was on hand to share five things to know with the L’Officiel Singapore team. They were kind enough to share it with us.

Work on the Etourdissant Cartier starts two years in advance.

Even before an idea of where we want to go in terms of design and the very evolution of that design, we have to gather the stones first. The gathering of stones is always the first step, and that’s what we do on a regular basis as you don’t buy stones in a month for a collection of 100 pieces. We hold a meeting with our design team at the beginning of September and we put all physical stones on the table that are available for the collection, and we match all possibilities that the stones offer to a direction that we have in mind.

Platinum necklace with diamonds and white gold bracelet with emerald, rock crystal, onyxes and diamonds.

The making of the Etourdissant Cartier is planned in two stages.

One will make its debut a year and a half later and the other, two years later. In fact, we presented the first part of the Etourdissant Cartier collection in June and July and now we are presenting the second part. Pieces that require more time to create are normally left for the second part.

Cartier gathers the most exceptional stones possible.

In the Etourdissant Cartier you’ll find an incredible sapphire from Burma, emeralds from Colombia and a combination of pink and blue diamonds, amongst others. It is mandatory for us that every collection should present some extraordinary stones, be it historical or not. The stones lead us to an inspiration, and then, in terms of style, we decide which direction we’d like to take and innovate upon.

Yellow gold ring with emeralds, rock crystal, onyxes and diamonds and yellow gold bracelet with emeralds, rock crystal, onyxes and brilliant-cut diamonds.

Our heritage is always present.

Everything we do has to bear the Cartier style in two ways. First, it should be recognisable as Cartier immediately even if there’s a lot of innovation going on. Second, this is almost a responsibility for us because innovations add a new vocabulary to the Cartier language and that is the way we look at our heritage. Heritage for us lies in the notion of style, and style is like a living language. Grammar would be, for instance, proportion, a sense of colour and associating them with the fluidity on the human body. The vocabulary is the precise element of design.

It is Cartier’s role to convince and shift the modern woman’s interest onto a certain newness.

Our previous works are so well known and popular that many people tend to want exactly the same thing. But if they want to be associated to the innovation like the way some people were associated with the first panthers in the ’40s or the first Galveston pieces in the 1900s, they should focus on the novelties.

Platinum necklace with rubellite, obsidian, onyx spots, emeralds and diamonds and platinum earrings with rubellites, onyx spots, emeralds and diamonds.

This article first appeared in L’Officiel Singapore.