When Cartier was the girls’ best friend

The word ‘jewel’ makes the heart beat a little faster. Great jewels have always epitomised beauty, love — illicit or sanctified —romance, danger and mystery. And no one knew better how to cash in on this mystique than the firm of Cartier, for years the go-to jewellers for discreet, elegant razzle-dazzle. Its customers were kings, princes, maharajas and the whole of ‘society’. The iconic panther brooch it created for the Duchess of Windsor sold for $7 million (in 2010).

When Francesca Cartier Brickell, searching for a special bottle of champagne in her Cartier grandfather’s cellar, spotted a battered leather trunk in one corner, she opened it to find bundles of letters, each tied and neatly labelled. It was, she realised, the story of her family: her grandfather had been the fourth generation to work for the business before it was sold in 1970. It is mainly on these that her book is based.