Cartier’s recent regional collaborations have brought Middle Eastern art, craft, and storytelling into the spotlight. From an exclusive embroidery experience created for its Bodrum flagship to a series of poems celebrating Emirati women, the maison has been finding new ways to connect its world with the region’s creative voices.
A Poetic Tribute to Emirati Women by Shamma Al Bastaki
For Emirati Women’s Day, Cartier collaborated with Emirati poet and artist Shamma Al Bastaki on a collection of three poems celebrating Emirati women and their stories.
Through her work, Al Bastaki often explores local stories, memory, and identity, using poetry as a way to preserve and reinterpret the UAE’s cultural heritage.
Her poetry collection House to House, for example, draws on oral histories and collective memories from communities around Dubai Creek between the 1940s and 1980s, weaving together personal stories and a shared sense of place.
Salim Azzam Brings Lebanese Embroidery to Cartier’s Bodrum Flagship
For the opening of its new flagship in Bodrum, Turkey, Cartier tapped Lebanese designer and visual storyteller Salim Azzam to create an exclusive embroidery experience rooted in the region’s craft traditions.
Azzam created a hand-embroidered charm featuring Cartier’s iconic panther, alongside embroidery kits featuring different visuals that are exclusively available at the Bodrum flagship. The kits invite visitors to engage with the craft themselves, turning the traditional technique into an interactive experience.
Known for his connection to hand embroidery, Azzam’s work often draws on the centuries-old craft and its place in Lebanese culture. His collaboration with Cartier brings that tradition together with the maison’s timeless visual language, creating something that feels both rooted and contemporary.
Two Different Mediums, One Connection to the Region
It’s interesting to see these two collaborations side by side. Al Bastaki uses poetry to preserve, explore, and reinterpret stories, while Azzam works with thread, translating tradition into something tangible.
Although their mediums are different, both collaborations place regional culture at the center while giving it a contemporary setting. Rather than simply looking back at heritage, they offer new ways of experiencing it through art, craft, and storytelling.
Cartier has also increasingly brought its regional presence to life through events across the region, often bringing together regional ambassadors, creatives, and cultural figures. Together, these moments make the maison’s connection to the region feel less like a global brand looking in and more like one creating space for local talent to tell its own stories.
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