Finding Balance: Introducing Cartier’s En Équilibre High Jewellery Collection

Cartier’s latest high jewellery collection, presented in Stockholm this Spring, was brought to life by workshop director Alexa Abitbol and her tireless team of mastercraftsmen, who pour savoir faire and soul into every sparkling piece

En Équilibre’ is the name of Cartier’s newest high jewellery collection, 115 scintillating creations that the maison unveiled during an ultra-chic jaunt to Sweden’s chicest city this Spring, Stockholm; an archipelago bursting with history, style and sculpture. From whisking press onto a vintage steamboat to a remote island for a dinner decked out in Scandi flowers, to taking over the Östermalms food hall with a ragtime band and dancers, every moment fittingly chimed with Cartier’s signature polish – especially celebrities in attendance like Deepika Padukone, Ana Sawai and Zoe Saldaña. So far, everything in balance. But while the collection’s harmonious use of bold colour, symmetrical silhouettes and ultra-rare gems seem perfectly weighted in every piece, some of the numbers didn’t quite stack up to anything imaginable from just one workshop.

It took three years for the collection to come to life, under the watchful eye of Alexa Abitbol, the maison’s workshop director, which in its entirety required 85,000 hours of her mastercraftsmen’s meticulous artisanry. The collection breaks a record for the most amount of time spent on one individual piece – 5,700 hours was spent on the Pavocelle necklace alone, which allows its wearer to detach a staggering 58 carat Ceylon sapphire that can be worn as a brooch. “It would have taken one man four to four and half years of work, so we had to put two different jewellers working together on the same piece to be able to meet the date of the collection launch,” explains Alexa. “If we have a delivery date, we can’t deliver the pieces the next week. The next week is too late,” she states matter of factly. Thus each curve, ark and corner of every jewel has been duly obsessed over to the nth degree right down to the line, and to the maison’s exacting standards. “Sometimes there are hundreds of elements, which require us to respect a special chronology of craftsmanship, even on the layers that no one will ever see,” she enthuses.

There are individual pieces where the stats simply defy imagination. Take the Dentelle necklace, which features a new, lace-like interpretation of the maison’s iconic panther.

Extraordinarily delicate to craft, 300 miniature squares link to form its sleek silhouette, which each required circa 30 minutes to sculpt in wax, while 150 spots had to be custom cut from jet black onyx. All in, it required 1,800 hours of labour, somewhat owing to the perfect stringing of 806 emerald beads, totalling a grand 275 carats.

This work is far from a breeze; there are days when the artisans must have the nous to step away from the bench. “We all know the rule. If there’s a day where they have something personal going on, or they just don’t feel it today, then they know they must put the piece down and step away,” she explains. “We have huge humility in front of the stones, they are natural, and we don’t always know how they will behave under stress, so you have to take your time. There are days where we say ‘today has to be your best day,’ so if everyone has to leave the workshop for the setter to place a particular stone, then we will all go out of the workshop,” she smiles.

In that Paris workshop there are approximately 10 different genres of artisans working in tandem. “For each piece, approximately 20 to 25 people will work on it. Once every two months, we gather the entire team – there are 230 of us in Paris – to admire the most recent finished pieces, and it’s a joy to see the pride of the craftsmen,” she says.

“It is a very physical job, the craftsmen handle these pieces for months on end. One recently explained to me that he didn’t know what to do once his piece was finished, he didn’t want to leave it, but he didn’t want to keep it,” she laughs. “We have to accompany them on that psychological journey. These kinds of jewels, they have a soul. And that soul is directly linked to the handiwork. There are small imperfections not perceptible to the naked eye, and at the end, that delivers a jewel with a lot of emotion,” she muses. Is it addictive? “When I see clients fall in love in front of a piece, it’s amazing,” she smiles. “I have the best job in the world.”

Lead image courtesy of Cartier

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From Harper’s Bazaar Arabia July/ August 2025 Issue