“There is a kind of seduction when you wear jewellery”: Monica Bellucci on slipping into Cartier’s dazzling High Jewelry in Stockholm

Monica Bellucci is big on balance. Balance between her acting career (she’s been a bona fide icon since her breakout in the 1990s) and motherhood (daughter Deva Cassel is already following in mom’s footsteps, both modelling and acting) and the various other roles embodied by a modern woman. So it’s no surprise that Cartier’s latest High Jewelry collection, which recently made its debut in Stockholm, resonated with the Italian actress. Dubbed En Équilibre, the collection revels in the notion of balance. “The creations embody a balance of strength and delicacy, very much like a woman,” says Bellucci, who describes her initial reaction to the collection as simply: “Magnifique!”

A longtime ambassador of Cartier, Belluci travelled to Stockholm to attend the jewellery house’s exclusive VIP dinner. For the occasion, she wore the extraordinary Panthère Dentelée High Jewelry necklace. The necklace, which took 1559 hours to bring to life, features 806 hand-selected emerald beads, strung through a meticulously crafted diamond panther. The use of negative space in the animal allows for the emeralds, each of which has 84 facets for maximum dazzle, to peek through its torso.

It’s hardly the first time Bellucci has worn Cartier High Jewelry. “Each time I wear Cartier pieces it feels like stepping into a timeless moment,” she says. “High Jewelry is for me about emotion and memory, those moments stay with you.” Still, one moment in particular stands out: the 2006 Cannes red carpet, for which she wore the famous María Félix crocodile necklace. Legend has it that in 1975, Félix, a Mexican actress and Cartier obsessive, brought her live pet crocodile into the Cartier store and requested a High Jewelry replica. Bellucci is the only woman to wear the necklace aside from Félix herself.

For Bellucci, the reverence for jewellery runs deep. “To me, jewellery is a form of identity that can be feminine and powerful,” she says. “There is a kind of seduction when you wear jewellery.” She even goes so far as to liken High Jewelry to cinema, in the way in which it “tells a story and evokes emotion”. Speaking of which, we’ll next find Bellucci on the big screen in the action thriller 7 Dogs, directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah.

With the Panthère Dentelée High Jewelry piece carefully placed on her neck, Bellucci is ready to head to dinner, looking every bit an icon of cinema. The notion of the jewellery completing the look was instilled in her at a young age. “When I was a teenager, I would see my mother and grandmother preparing to go out, and their final touch was jewellery,” she says. “They would look proud and feminine wearing them. It is those moments that shaped my interest in jewellery.”

See Bellucci below as she gets prepares forCartier's exclusive Gala event in the Swedish capital.