Chanel and Cartier are almost members of the Monaco royal family. Princess Caroline of Monaco was a great friend to the late Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld, and her mother Princess Grace was often photographed in the house’s signature boucle tweeds.

And Cartier of course, famously designed Princess Grace’s 10-carat emerald cut engagement ring, the one Alfred Hitchcock (a jewelry lover!) urged her to wear onscreen in High Society, and a jewel that may have also inspired Jennifer Lopez’s most recent acquisition. (Cartier also designed the ring Rainier first proposed with, a much simpler eternity band in rubies and diamonds—the colors of Monaco)

On the set of To Catch a Thief
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Grace Kelly on the set of To Catch a Thief.

This weekend, when Charlotte Casiraghi, Princess Grace's granddaughter, married Dimitri Rassan in Monaco, she paid homage to both these family ties. The dress she wore to the reception at Villa La Vogue was a white strapless Chanel, and the necklace she chose? Her grandmother’s Cartier. It is, after the engagement ring, perhaps the most celebrated of the family’s Cartier treasures.

The three strand necklace, created from approximately 64 carats of round and emerald cut diamonds set in platinum is in the festoon style. It was a gift from Prince Rainier to his bride on their wedding day in 1956. It has been a celebrated part of many of Cartier’s jewelry exhibits around the world but still belongs to the royal family of Monaco, specifically to Prince Albert. Was the Cartier necklace her “something borrowed”?

Wedding Of Rainier III, Prince of Monaco And Princess Grace
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Prince Rainier III and Princess Grace on their wedding day on April 19, 1956 in Monaco.


This marks the second time this year the family has paid tribute to the memory of Princess Grace through jewelry. Princess Caroline wore her mother’s Van Cleef & Arpels pearl and diamond suite for the first time in April. That necklace was also a gift from Prince Rainier to Princess Grace the year they were married.

Headshot of Stellene Volandes
Stellene Volandes
Editor In Chief

Editor-in-Chief Stellene Volandes is a jewelry expert, and the author of Jeweler: Masters and Mavericks of Modern Design (Rizzoli).