Cartier designed the Tutti Frutti bracelet, a landmark of the French jewellery house’s colorful Art Deco style.
The design grew from Cartier’s fascination with Indian jewellery and gemstone-carving traditions. After Jacques Cartier visited India in the early 20th century, the maison increasingly used carved rubies, emeralds and sapphires shaped as leaves, buds and berries. Rather than faceting every stone, craftspeople sculpted the gems into organic forms and mounted them in vivid compositions.
A historic Cartier Tutti Frutti bracelet dates to 1925. It is mounted on platinum and combines diamonds, sapphires, emeralds and rubies, with onyx and black enamel adding contrast. The style was initially recorded in Cartier’s archives as “foliage” or colored-stone jewellery; the name “Tutti Frutti” became common only later.
This is not a signature style created by Tiffany, Bulgari or Van Cleef & Arpels. Those houses have their own celebrated traditions, but Cartier is the maison most specifically associated with Tutti Frutti’s carved, Indian-inspired jewel compositions.