Cartier believes a great stone should be listened to, not merely looked at. The maison unveiled the second chapter of Le Chœur des Pierres — the choir of stones, its 2026 high jewellery collection — at the Kyoto National Museum this month, an evening that drew Sofia Coppola and a constellation of Japanese stars, with K-pop luminary Jisoo wearing the collection’s centrepiece to dinner.
That centrepiece is Stellara: a 41.01-carat Ceylon sapphire set in a wave of radiant-cut diamonds that seems to move even at rest. Around it, the chapter is headlined by five necklaces and five earring designs, each built outward from its stones.
Panthère Tunya gives the house’s great cat a 9-carat cushion-cut yellow diamond and frames it with emerald beads around a 48.12-carat Zambian emerald; Tutti Chaya reimagines the Tutti Frutti legacy asymmetrically, with nearly 57 carats of Colombian emeralds and some two thousand hours of workshop time; Tipaza suspends twin 7.36-carat briolette diamonds over three strands of rubies; Fibria braids emeralds, turquoise and rubies like the trimmings of a couture gown.
“Letting a stone speak is to recognise in it a memory of the world,” says Jacqueline Karachi, the maison’s director of high jewellery creation — “a beauty shaped by time and imbued with eternity.”
The choir is still assembling. The first chapter debuted in Saint-Tropez in April with 130 pieces; a third arrives next year in Hawaii, completing a cycle of some 250 jewels, objects and timepieces. For the Gulf’s high jewellery clientele — among the most consequential in the world for exactly these pieces — Kyoto’s verses will not stay in Japan for long.
