Now Queen’s favourite jeweller adds its sparkle to Royal houses
IT IS Camilla’s favourite jewellery brand, with the Queen often seen sporting their quirky brooches or elegant bracelets. And now her love of Van Cleef & Arpels has been repaid with the company making a generous donation to one of her husband’s favourite projects.
Under a new deal, the highend Paris-based brand will help pay for the upkeep of the gardens at Dumfries House, the Scottish stately home the King saved for the nation.
Part of the five-acre walled garden there will now be renamed the Van Cleef & Arpels Rose Garden in honour of their support, which also extends to looking after the woodland, hedgerows and borders.
Gardens at the Castle of Mey in Caithness and Highgrove in Gloucestershire will also receive funding from the 108-year-old firm.
The Castle of Mey, a favourite retreat for the Royal couple, was originally bought by the Queen Mother and is, like Dumfries House, looked after by the King’s charitable Prince’s Foundation. Meanwhile, the couple lease Highgrove from the Duchy of Cornwall, controlled by Prince William, as a private residence.
The Queen is often seen sporting Van Cleef & Arpels, including a distinctive blue agate and 18-carat yellow gold bracelet she wore at the Sandringham Flower Show in June.
She wore the same piece – which costs £4,250 – at a Buckingham Palace reception in 2022. She has variously worn their brooches in the shape of a ballerina, dragonflies and flowers, and donned a green Alhambra necklace with matching earrings at a charity event in 2017.
Nicolas Bos, chief executive of Van Cleef & Arpels – which has also been popular with great style icons such as Grace Kelly and Elizabeth Taylor – said the company’s backing will ensure the gardens at Dumfries ‘continue to be a valuable and accessible asset for local communities and visitors alike’.
And he said that as a brand often inspired by nature, ‘we cannot praise the beauty of flora and fauna without paying attention to its preservation’.
I’m sure the green-fingered King would wholeheartedly agree.