Grain de Café or Frivole
Cartier · Van Cleef & Arpels
Grain de Café
The coffee bean, full and grooved down its middle, cast in gold and gathered into clusters.
Polish is the argument in Frivole. Van Cleef & Arpels finishes each heart-shaped petal by hand to a mirror, so bare gold flashes like a gem, and since 2003 the blossoms have been scattered in loose, uneven clusters. Cartier's Grain de Café works gold through volume instead: a plump bean with a groove down its middle, drawn by Jeanne Toussaint in 1938 and worn by Grace Kelly's generation. Each is a cluster of one natural form, the petal reflective and light, the bean dense.
| Fact | Grain de Café | Frivole |
|---|---|---|
| Introduced | 1938 | 2003 |
| Designer | Jeanne Toussaint | — |
| School | Place Vendôme | Place Vendôme |
| Materials | yellow gold, white gold, platinum, diamond, tourmaline | yellow gold, rose gold, white gold, diamond |
| Moves | No | No |
| From | €7,900 | Not published |
| Top of line | €371,000 | — |
Prices in euros as published by each house, October 2026.
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