Cartier Celebrates Its Long-Standing Link to Jean Cocteau

But it’s the double stack of Cartier Trinity rings always worn on his left pinkie that became synonymous with Cocteau. So much so that a myth evolved that it was he who had originally commissioned the design, which marks its 100th anniversary this year. The celebration culminates in a special installation in the Miami Design District in December, including a room dedicated to Cocteau. He actually didn’t begin wearing the rings until the 1930s, but personal letters do confirm they represented his love for Natalia Paley, the wife of couturier Lucien Lelong and perhaps Cocteau’s only female paramour.

“Trinity as a creation owes a lot to him,” says Pierre Rainero, Cartier’s director of image, style, and heritage. “The fact that a poet chose that ring to be a symbol of himself established its strength and that strong link with poetry. The ring is something more than a beautiful item.”

For his election to the Académie Française in 1955, Cocteau conceived his own academician’s sword, which is bestowed on new members as part of the uniform, according to tradition. Cocteau sketched a design packed with symbolism: Orpheus, shown in profile with his lyre, holds an emerald given to him by Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel. The sheath is ornamented with the motif of the gates of the Palais-Royal, where the French polymath lived.

The precious object, which Cartier purchased from a descendant of Cocteau’s heir, Édouard Dermit, resides in a private salon dedicated to the artist at 13 rue de la Paix, the maison’s Paris flagship—but has recently traveled to an exhibition at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice and is now on view at the Shanghai Museum as part of a show titled “Cartier, the Power of Magic,” a reference to his immortal quote.

A version of this article first appeared in print in our 2024 Winter Issue under the headline “Symbolic Link.”  Subscribe to the magazine.