Van Cleef & Arpels exhibits its precious garden

From June 2024 to 13 January 2025, you can discover a jewellery garden designed by Van Cleef & Arpels. Flowers are a never-ending source of inspiration for jewellers, and Van Cleef & Arpels has been using them to great effect since 1907, when a daisy entered the brand’s repertoire. For more than a century, flowers have been a constant feature in the collections of a house that has been able to interpret and sublimate them without distorting them.

1- A daisy for life

in 1907, a daisy bloomed in the wonderful garden of Van Cleef & Arpels. Since then, the House has never ceased to conjure up the floral imagination in its delicate creations. Polished, matt or brushed gold, hard or transparent stones – every possible variation has been explored to bring flowers back into the House’s creative vocabulary.

Whether alone or accompanied by other varieties, the daisy never ceases to move us. Remember, in 2017, it was featured on a “Marguerite d’amour” watch in the Le Secret collection, with its removable petals concealing the nursery rhyme of lovers: je t’aime, un peu, beaucoup, à la folie…. In the 1950s, it was found in abundance on minaudières and pens, where it appeared engraved and chiselled. Later, it was adorned with diamonds or covered in rubies.

2- Flowers, flowers!

From intoxicating sprays to overflowing bouquets, Van Cleef & Arpels designers play with flowers and never tire of the riches nature has to offer. Because flowers are a language, the jewellers transcribe them in jewels that sometimes hide subtle messages. Did you know that anemones are given as a symbol of trust, but that anthemis herald a break-up with a friend or lover? Hawthorn means the return of hope, but in a cautious way, while the joy and impatience of a reunion is hidden behind the buttercup? Each flower has its own message and meaning! And just as many jewels to convey them…

The exhibition on the Place Vendôme invites you to discover 50 jewellery interpretations of the flower. It’s beautiful, light, uplifting and good for you. It’s a way of keeping spring and summer alive as we enter autumn. And to take things a step further, I can’t recommend the wonderful book that the house has just published on its heritage collection, in which flowers feature prominently. There’s an article on the subject in the magazine GEMMES (to be read free of charge on p.104)! The book is complemented by a website that is as magical as it is inexhaustible. ” It’s by believing in roses that you make them bloom” wrote Anatole France, and he was quite right…

See you soon!