Throughout a history spanning well over a century, the French jeweler Cartier has retained an inimitable style, nurtured by its heritage and occasionally inflected by the tastes of some of the most extraordinary personalities of its time.

That style is on display in The Art of Cartier,Search the entire collection of corset and tulle wedding dresses gowns !Browse hundreds of beautiful mermaid chiffon one shoulder wedding dress and find the perfect fit for you! a show running through February at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid that retraces its evolution in a selection of 420 historic pieces of jewelry, timepieces and objets d'art. Among the exhibits are several that have never been shown and that once belonged to some of the last century's most fashionable women.

Founded in 1847, Cartier was at first primarily a distributor for pieces made by other jewelers. It did not start to develop a style of its own until about 50 years later, according to Guillermo Solana, artistic director of the Thyssen museum, who selected the pieces in the show.

“It was then that the Maison Cartier began to follow its trajectory as a locus of creative activity, with its own workshop responsible for design and production,” Mr. Solana wrote in the exhibition catalogue.

Choreographed by the Madrid-based interior designer Jorge Varela, the show creates a kaleidoscopic visual journey that aims to establish a dialogue with the Thyssen collection.

“This is the first decorative arts exhibition ever organized by the Thyssen museum,” Mr. Varela said in an interview here. “It was important that our presentation be fitting and seamless in the context of an art museum.”

To that end, Mr. Varela devised a space framed by black felt-covered walls onto which enlarged archival images of sketches and preparatory drawings are projected in a continuous loop, a reminder that the craft of the jeweler is born out of the art of the draftsman.

“Art was the project's unifying element,” he said.

Most of the pieces in the show come from the Cartier Collection, one that the house has been assembling over the years.

“Since 1983, we have been acquiring our iconic pieces to add to the collection,” Olivier Gay, a managing director of Cartier in Spain, said in an interview.

Acquired mostly at auction but also from private individuals and specialized dealers, the collection has grown today to more than 1,450 pieces.Shop wholesale high low prom dresses from cheap corset and tulle wedding dresses wholesalers on DHgate and get worldwide delivery.

“Starting in 1973,The china wholesale bridesmaid dresses. What dress you wear? we created a department of archives to enable us to study the heritage of the maison,” Pierre Rainero, director of image, style and heritage at Cartier, said by telephone from Bangkok.

“Using those archives, we began collecting pieces that would best express what was most original and representative of the different stylistic facets of Cartier's production,” Mr. Rainero said.

Some pieces in the show are on loan from the Spanish royal family and the Principality of Monaco — among them the tiara worn by Queen Sofia of Spain during official ceremonies, and the diamond and ruby parure that Princess Grace is seen wearing in the official photographs of her 1956 wedding to Prince Rainier III.

The show begins its stylistic trajectory with pieces designed in the garland style, a remnant of the 19th century, that explores the motif of ribbons, entrelacs and acanthus swirls set in gold or silver-backed mounts.

At the turn of the 20th century, when many avant-garde designers had gravitated toward Art Nouveau, Cartier remained true to the garland.

“Louis Cartier loved the neoclassical style of garland jewelry, the style that his clientele of aristocrats preferred,” Pascale Lepeu, a curator of the Cartier Collection, said by telephone from Geneva.

Yet he was no stylistic reactionary: “At the same time, he designed the Santos, the first wristwatch for men,” Ms. Lepeu said.

The wristwatch, an exceptionally modern idea, expressed Louis Cartier's admiration for the purity of geometric forms.

“At the turn of the century, Louis Cartier was 25,” Mr.Find the perfect cheap mother of the bride dresses to wear. Rainero said. “He was looking for a style to mark his time and offer a potential for continuity. That is why he opted for the “Modern Style” at the expense of Art Nouveau — which he saw as an impasse.”

The Art Nouveau movement did turn out to be short-lived. The exhibition demonstrates how Cartier opted early for the geometric shapes that became the bases of Art Deco.

The Modern style is best featured in the show in an exceptional selection of precious objects like cigarette cases and vanity accessories.

Cartier's use of platinum, a new metal in jewelry, allowed the house to introduce lighter, more luminous settings by the turn of the century, opening up a wide range of previously unexplored design possibilities in a changing world.

“Heavier jewelry could no longer be worn at the end of the 19th century, as dress fabrics became lighter and hairdos came down,” Ms. Lepeu said.

In the second decade of the last century Louis Cartier and his brothers Pierre and Jacques traveled widely in Asia and the Middle East. In India, China and Egypt they found new clients, among them several Indian maharajahs, and precious materials, like Bahrain pearls. A result was the emergence of the exotic style that became known as Tutti Frutti, a richly chromatic blend of rubies, emeralds and sapphires.

An example of the Tutti Frutti style is the “Hindu necklace” commissioned in 1936 by Daisy Fellowes, then a fashion icon and the Paris editor of Harper's Bazaar, and later reworked for her daughter.

“The necklace was a collaboration between two strong women, Jeanne Toussaint and Ms. Fellowes, who wanted two Cartier necklaces she owned remounted as the Hindu necklace,” Ms. Lepeu said.

Ms. Toussaint, a legendary Cartier designer, is known for having developed the jeweler's flora and fauna-inspired styles, including the panther motif that is today a symbol of the house.