TRAVEL STYLE
A French jewellery maison dazzles Beijing.
When American socialite Wallis Simpson found herself at a particularly tiresome social engagement one evening in the 1920s, there was no polite way to gauge the time. Ladies didn’t wear timepieces and, even if they did, it would be a faux pas to check the clock mid-party.
So Simpson approached her favoured Parisian maison, Van Cleef & Arpels, with a design brief for a jewelled bracelet with a flat, rectangular front that hid a watch face from view. Cast in platinum and accented with diamonds, the tiny clock was angled towards the wearer’s eye so a quick downward glance would reveal how much small talk was left to endure.
A replica of this watch, called the Cadenas, along with 360 other exquisite and innovative designs dating from the first days of Van Cleef & Arpels in 1896, are on display this month at the Today
Art Museum in Beijing. The large and diverse exhibition,
When Elegance Meets Art, includes a diamond chandelier necklace made for Queen Nazli of Egypt and a bold, lion-themed choker which belonged to the Queen of Hollywood, Elizabeth Taylor.
The Barquerolles choker, a gold-and-diamond set studded with two perfect emeralds, was a gift from Richard Burton to mark the birth of Taylor’s first grandchild in 1971. It was nicknamed “the granny” and at the time she said it made her heart start “clicking like a castanet”.
After the success of her first foray in design, Wallis Simpson regularly called upon the team at Van Cleef & Arpels for customised accessories. She dreamed up a necklace in the style of a zipper, composed of diamonds and mounted in platinum and white gold, and the team set to work. Perfecting this design for Simpson, however, took Van Cleef & Arpels almost 20 years, and it wasn’t until 1950 that a working example of the Zip necklace was completed. Fully adjustable, the piece could be worn open around the neck or closed as a bracelet. Simpson, an avid jewellery collector, never wore the design; by the time the maison had mastered the technique, we’re told, “she had moved on”.
Simpson was not the only regular client who was a source of inspiration. One evening, after witnessing New York socialite
Florence Jay Gould tossing her lipstick, powder case, cigarettes, and lighter into a Lucky Strike cigarette tin, Charles Arpels set about creating what he would call the Minaudière, or precious case. It was a vanity box for the modern woman, with compartments for a dance card, lighter, perfume, lipstick, a discreet watch and a removable clasp that could be used as a hair clip.
The collection of Van Cleef & Arpels’ most interesting and innovative works tells intriguing stories about the customs, trends and whims of high society since the 1920s. It’s also a dazzling journey through 120 years of jewellery design and gem-setting technique. Much of the collection feels timeless, perhaps best evinced by frequent guest appearances of many of the pieces on red carpets. While the Zip necklace may not have been worth the wait for the Duchess of Windsor, it looked pitch-perfect on Margot Robbie when she attended the Oscars in 2015. These days it’s worth a cool $1.5 million. Van Cleef & Arpels, When Elegance Meets Art, shows until 5 August at the Today Art Museum, Beijing. todayartmuseum.com