Van Cleef & Arpels: Creativity and Innovation
A SELLING EXHIBITION
noV. 23 - dEc. 29, 2012
Van Cleef & Arpels: Creativity and Innovation
noVEMBEr 23 - dEcEMBEr 29, 2012
667 MADISON AVENUE • NEW YORK, NY 10065 212-644-6400/WWW . MACKLOWEGALLERY.COM
M
acklowe Gallery’s selling exhibition, Van Cleef & Arpels: Creativity and Innovation, celebrates the revered jewelry house that has become synonymous with glamour throughout the world. Each exquisite jewel masterfully juxtaposes transparency with opacity in a game that seduces the eye and summons timeless themes of nature, the exotic and the eternal feminine. A ruby, platinum and diamond bracelet, belonging to the late Barbara Hutton, recalls a languorous vine or painted leaves decorating Persian manuscripts. An Australian opal set in gold conjures the iridescent enamels and vegetal forms associated with Art Nouveau. An exotic ring set with sixteen rubies and thirty-six diamonds might have been worn by an Indian princess, whereas a lapis lazuli, mother-of-pearl and coral pendant trimmed with gold and diamonds evokes a lotus blossom. Seemingly cast from a Japanese print or shaped by the hands of a turn-of-the-century animalier sculptor, a white diamond and black enamel panda clinging to gold bamboo shoots and a languid white diamond and black onyx spotted leopard with green emerald eyes present two visions of feminine whimsy. With persistent innovation, Van Cleef & Arpels jewelers and designers effectively transpose world events into sources of creativity. At the same time, their creative integration of the latest trends in architecture, fashion and design have allowed the company to maintain an always au courant luxury business over a century that spanned two World Wars and a new millennium. VC&A’s illustrious history began with a merger. In 1896, Estelle Arpels, the daughter of a dealer in precious stones, married Alfred Van Cleef, the son of a diamond cutter from Amsterdam. In 1906, Alfred Van Cleef and two brothers-in-law, Charles Arpels and Julien Arpels registered the “Van Cleef & Arpels” trademark and opened their first boutique at 22 Place Vendôme, Paris. They were soon joined by three more of Estelle’s brothers, Salomon, Jules and Louis Arpels. Observing the changing lifestyles and habits of the upper class, VC&A followed its clients to their new playgrounds in the French Riviera. Beginning in 1909, the jewelry house opened boutiques in holiday resorts such as Deauville, Le Touquet, Nice, and Monte-Carlo. Since VC&A’s establishment, the firm has eagerly responded to the needs of the continuously evolving modern woman. Its first shop opened at the height of the Art Nouveau movement with its themes of nature and metamorphosis continuing to permeate VC&A’s designs. Flowers were prime inspiration and still are to this day. In the jeweler’s workshops cabochons were easily transformed into flower petals and precious metals into leaves and vines. Other aspects of nature have also been explored over the years. In the 1940s VC&A would present its “Snowflake” collection to celebrate nature’s vital force and fragility co-existing in harmony. The awe-inspiring eagle brooch featured in this exhibition illustrates how malachite, onyx and mother-of-pearl could metamorphose into feather and wing. Embracing modernity with the Art Deco style, VC&A was highly visible at the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris. As the Art Deco movement crystallized, the firm’s geometric jewels channeled cubist paintings, modernist architecture and a new aesthetic defined by French couturiers, jazz and the automobile. Women began to play with the new streamlined style and to experiment with concepts of masculine and feminine. By the mid-1920s, they were sporting hairstyles à la garçonne, wearing tuxedo jackets, smoking cigarettes and primping in the powder room. Out of Jazz Age nightlife, characterized by nightclubs and cocktail parties, came one of VC&A’s great innovations inspired by a client, the socialite and philanthropist Florence Jay Gould. Legend has it that this modern-minded woman came to a meeting with Charles Arpels with her belongings gathered into a Lucky Strike cigarette tin. With French flair, Arpels translated this box into a sleek architectural case to carry a woman’s necessities for a night out. It is significant that the “necessities” in the case were for a woman of the modern era: a comb to run through the fashionable bob; a case for lipstick (only recently accepted in high society); a powder puff; and cigarettes, the ultimate fashion accessory. VC&A called it the Minaudière, launching a cross between jewelry and the handbag that persists today. In a 1930s photograph, Florence Jay Gould is portrayed as a symbol of modern elegance: waved hair,
pearl necklace, black fur stole and VC&A Minaudière. Fashion has always reigned supreme in Paris and the rest of the world has consistently looked toward the Parisian woman to know how to dress. The assortment of cosmetic and cigarette cases in Macklowe Gallery’s exhibition are echoes of these times. Another major innovation from VC&A is the Invisible, or “Mystery” setting, patented between 1934 and 1936. In the “Mystery” setting hundreds of small jewels seem to float with no visible mounting. Precious rubies, sapphires, emeralds and diamonds are set into an apparent mosaic using extremely fine rails which hug the contours of the stones. The name of the setting and the illusion at its heart allude to the complexity of feminine mystique. In an age of modernity, designers, architects and artists took inspiration from machines and practiced the art of transformation. VC&A’s designers turned their gaze to the closely related field of fashion. Functional and utilitarian elements of dress, like buckles, ribbons, zippers and clothing closures became fodder for jeweled flights of fancy. Twisting metal like fiber, VC&A’s jewelers created jewelry in the form of knots, weaves, cords, tassels and other decorative details. The “Angel Hair” bracelet/watch, featured in this exhibition, is based on a slipknot closure and exemplifies the jeweler’s ability to transform gold into a supple rope. The diamond-encrusted concealed watch is further evidence of the firm’s ability to elevate the mundane to the level of fine jewelry. In 1920, VC&A created the bracelet known as the “Ludo,” a nickname for Louis Arpels, honored through this design. A bracelet with a buckle closure, it was made in a number of iterations and its wristband developed in various ways. All of the bracelets incorporated a buckle-like element as the decorative focus, some studded with various gemstones. The earlier versions were usually simple buckles, but with the enthusiasm for bolder more jeweled designs, the buckles became more prominent. Eventually, jewelers would incorporate “Mystery” set stones and even place watches under the buckle. One of the most technically challenging “Ludo” bands is the extremely versatile honeycomb band formed from flat, interlocking hexagonal cells designed for suppleness. Earrings with volutes, a ring, and dress clips to match could be acquired to make a set. A honeycomb “Ludo” bracelet and dress clips from the late 1930s are featured in this exhibition. Renée Rachel Puissant, the Van Cleef’s daughter, took charge of the firm after the death of her brother Émile Puissant in 1926. Her reign as Artistic Director brought important stylistic momentum that further buttressed the house. Her long standing partnership with one of the foremost jewelry designers, René Sim Lacaze, infused creations with genius that sprang from the stroke of a pencil. This was the time of graphic modernity, an extension of the movement initiated in architecture by figures such as Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier a few years earlier. Puissant relied on Lacaze to commit her flood of ideas to paper. Working from his initial sketches, she would contribute her own detailed suggestions. Their aesthetic dialogue lasted until 1939 and the fruits of their collaboration defined VC&A’s pre-war style. Changes within the VC&A firm came in the 1930s. On the eve of war in 1939, Claude Arpels, the oldest son of Julian and the second generation in the Arpels family, opened the first Van Cleef & Arpels store in America at New York City’s modern Rockefeller Center, making VC&A one of the first European luxury firms to establish a presence in the States. Escaping the war in Europe, the rest of the Arpels family immigrated to America in 1942 and moved the American boutique to its present location at 744 Fifth Avenue. The challenge of maintaining a luxury business through World War II, which severely limited prized resources such as precious stones, platinum and gold, led to creative uses of semi-precious stones and non-precious materials. Allowing the secrets of every stone to inspire, VC&A brought less valuable gems such as aquamarines, garnets and rubellites to light. Sometimes the poetry of unexpected materials such as mother-of-pearl, snake wood and lacquer was expressed, but always in a vocabulary defined by elegant form and design. Many of the creative solutions to difficult times have remained or been revived in new designs over the years while newer materials have been added to the repertoire.
One such design that has reappeared in a variety of formats is the “Zip” necklace. An idea conceived in the 1930s by the Duchess of Windsor and Renée Puissant, the “Zip” necklace was realized in 1950. It looks and functions like a real zipper and can be worn open as a necklace or zipped closed to become a bracelet. The “Zip” necklace can, according to one’s mood, conceal or reveal. The intimate relationship between a woman and a jewel is interactive. They become accomplices in the art of seduction. In 1954, the firm started a commercial trend that continues to this day by opening boutiques that served as companions to their haute joaillerie salons, greatly expanding their client base. The boutiques offer collections of jewelry that are “young in spirit and reasonably priced” and update yearly to reflect changing fashions. Today, although the company is no longer managed by a descendant of the Arpels family, VC&A is active not only in Europe and the U.S., but also in Asia and the Middle East. Since 1999, VC&A has existed under the auspices of the Compagnie Financière Richemont S.A. The years surrounding this change have been punctuated by a series of traveling exhibitions that visited the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Smithsonian Museum in Washington to promote the VC&A label and celebrate the company’s ingenuity. In 1992, a large retrospective exhibition was held at the Palais Galliera in Paris. Nearly two decades later, revived interest in VC&A inspired exhibitions at the Mori Museum of Art in Tokyo (2009), the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York City (2011), the Museum of Contemporary Art in Shanghai (2012) and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris this past Fall, where Macklowe Gallery loaned a number of VC&A pieces. Over the decades, VC&A creations have been worn by an impressive roster of royalty, stars of the silver screen, opera divas, and socialites. The names and personalities of the Duchess of Windsor, Princess Grace of Monaco, Audrey Hepburn, Sophia Loren, Marlene Dietrich, Elizabeth Taylor, Maria Callas, Jacqueline Kennedy, Florence Jay Gould and Barbara Hutton will forever be linked to the company’s extraordinary jewels. Today, VC&A’s jewels continue to grace the red carpet as they are worn by Sharon Stone, Kristen Scott Thomas, Julia Roberts, Uma Thurman, Sophia Coppola and many others. Commemorating VC&A’s enduring sense of style and excellence and inspired by the illustrious and formidable spectrum of VC&A’s oeuvre as showcased in recent exhibitions, Macklowe Gallery presents a summary of the firm’s designs in its own tribute to the company’s remarkable history.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY: Clais, Anne-Marie, Discovering Van Cleef & Arpels (Paris, Editions Assouline, 2001). Coffin, Sarah D. ed., Set in Style: The Jewelry of Van Cleef & Arpels (New York, Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, 2011). Petit, Marc, Van Cleef & Arpels: Reflections of Eternity (Paris, Éditions Cercle d’Art, 2006-2007). Possémé, Évelyne ed., Van Cleef & Arpels: L’art de la haute joaillerie (Paris, Les Arts Décoratfis, 2012). Raulet, Sylvie. Van Cleef & Arpels (New York, Rizzoli, 1987).
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
57
58.
59.
60.
61.
62.
63.
64.
Essay: Jessica Goldring Photography: Antonio Virardi Design: Lary Matlick
Macklowe Gallery Ltd. Copyright Š 2012. All Rights Reserved.