PARIS — While a number of Place Vendôme houses headed south to unveil their latest high jewelry collections, Cartier set its sights due north.

For the opening chapter of the “En Équilibre” collection, which has balance as its throughline, the French jeweler chose Stockholm to stage a multiday showcase that kicks off Monday.

“The city expresses the perfect balance between being a city and nature around it, it embraces innovation and tradition,” Cartier’s chief marketing officer Arnaud Carrez told WWD ahead of the event.

Plus it’s a destination that fit a desire to explore new locales for high jewelry.

Not just in hopes that some clients will walk away with one of the 115 pieces of this first chapter, which was accompanied by six high jewelry watches and three objects, mind you. Offering a dose of the unexpected is part and parcel of the Cartier way, the executive said.

So before any gems were unveiled, there was a first surprise: the appointment of Gemma Chan as brand ambassador.

“We build relationships with talents inscribed in a long time [scale],” Carrez said. “It’s about meaningful, deep relationships.”

Before making it official with not one but two high jewelry rings in her official portrait, the “Captain Marvel” and “Crazy Rich Asians” star had regularly donned the house’s jewels for appearances over the years, most recently for the Grand Dîner du Louvre black-tie gala.

She also attended a number of events such as the opening of the Cartier exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum.

The collection’s “En Équilibre” moniker became an opportunity to put the accent on what Carrez described as an “unlimited vocabulary from the unexpected to the universally familiar” that has kept Cartier on the map and in a good spot.

“At the end, it’s always a matter of beauty and harmony,” Carrez said.

Jacqueline Karachi, creative director of Cartier, said balance was “important at every stage, from the search for the stones to the creation and the manufacturing of the pieces.”

“It is all a question of expertise throughout the process to restore harmony to the eye, to give meaning to the creation and appear and make it appear self-evident,” she continued. “We work on the invisible to create a perception that comes close to perfection.”

That could be the unseen details added to that je ne sais quoi of a jewel, like the polishing done on edges never meant to be visible — except to another jeweler who might one day service the piece.

Or letting the “magical moment full of emotions that moves and delights” Karachi and the high jewelry team upon encountering a stone do the talking.

Hence the “nothing in excess” principle that underpinned the Shito necklace, two deceptively simple lines of diamonds and emeralds that cross at the front and back, leaving a pair of Zambian emerald drops of nearly 50 carats do the talking.

The idea of gemstones floating metal-free on the skin was alluded to in the supple Hyala necklace, which drapes delicately hued colored diamonds and sapphires thanks to a nigh-on-invisible pink gold setting.

Elsewhere, the ideal addition to a design might not be another gemstone but a gap in the precious materials.

Another example was Panthère Dentelle, where 274.58-carats’ worth of Colombian emerald beads cascade toward the animal — holding a 4-carat kite-cut diamond — whose coat was interpreted as lace-like openwork.

Amply used throughout, this technique yielded other striking gems.

These included the geometrically minded Tsagaan, a design inspired by the hard-to-observe snow leopard, whose face is revealed at certain angles in the interplay of kite-, lozenge- and triangle-cut; the Traforato necklace, where touches of emerald and onyx create the impression of volume leading to three octagonal stones, and the Pavocelle necklace where the entire structure echoes the volumes of the 58-carat sapphire cabochon center stone, a detachable motif that can be worn as a brooch or on a choker ribbon.

Requiring 5,700 hours of work, including more than 4,100 hours dedicated solely to the jewelry craftsmanship, this peacock-inspired design exemplified this balance of perceived simplicity and highly complex hidden structures.

For Alexa Abitbol, director of the high jewelry workshops, the new collection reflects the expertise of the jeweler’s craftspeople, who spent nearly 100,000 hours overall on the collection.

“[It] embodies Cartier’s vision of balance in term of design and technique,” she told WWD. “While striving to capture this balance in lines, colors, solids and voids, our artisans faced significant challenges in harmonizing their technical mastery with the designer’s vision.”

Another balance invisible to the client but essential to the glittering designs meant to delight them and perhaps join their personal treasure troves is the one between traditional crafts and technology.

Throughout its workshops in the center of Paris, glyptic specialists carving stones and hands patiently stringing pearls cohabit with 3D printers and advanced precision tools. The latter facilitate the execution of a design vision or ensure repetitive tasks where resources are rare.

“This balance allows us to preserve the unique character of handcrafted jewelry while pushing the boundaries of creativity and technical feasibility,” Abitbol said. “It is here again a question of [balance] even if I deeply believe that our craftsmanship in high jewelry is so specific that the experience, the eyes, and the emotions of our artisans remain irreplaceable.”