Cartier, Grace Kelly, Elle Fanning and Grain de Café: A Perfectly Rich Brew AOC Jewelry News

Cartier has recently unveiled their new Grain de Cafe Collection featuring ambassador Elle Fanning, as the face of the campaign. Fanning has been aligned with Cartier since 2021.

This is not an ordinary high jewelry campaign but one that showcases Fanning as the iconic Hollywood actress and Princess of Monaco, Grace Kelly — a devoted lover of Cartier jewelry.

Elle Fanning became a Cartier ambassador on April 22, 2021, marking a new milestone for the talent, who has been making a name for herself as one of the most talented and versatile young actresses in Hollywood.

Fanning’s partnership with the brand has brought a fresh, youthful energy coupled with female competence, grace and old-school allure to Cartier’s brand's image.

If there is a future remake of a Grace Kelly film, Fanning is certain to get the part. People who have watched the Cartier campaign film for the relaunched Grain de Café Collection are quite astonished.

To pay tribute to Grace Kelly, the iconic Hollywood star, Cartier turned to American director Alex Prager whose sensitivity resonates with the codes of the collection.

The original story of the collection is embedded in a difficult time in world history when Cartier’s creative director Jeanne Toussaint had risen quickly to the coveted and rare for a woman design position in Paris.

AOC will detail her rise in a separate post, at a time when Cartier is honoring Toussaint in Hong Kong.

Cartier’s Grain de Café Collection Born in 1938

The Grain de Café collection was first launched in 1938 by Cartier creative director Jeanne Toussaint. In touch with popular culture in 1938, Toussaint believed that every moment and every experience in life is like a grain of coffee, which when carefully roasted and brewed, releases its full flavor.

The designer’s own family background in Belgium was a modest one, and it surely gave her a more instinctual understanding of the social balancing act of enormous wealth against simpler, more substantative values. The two are not mutually exclusive — but often difficult to manage simultaneously.

In creating Cartier’s Grain de Café Collection, Toussaint tapped into her knowledge of global power and conflicts, economic suffering and rising authoritarianism. Quiet luxury was on her creative mind.