22, PLACE VENDÔME or permanent creation

Stanislas de Quercize : We believe in a better world. We believe in love. Estelle Arpels and Alfred Van Cleef loved each other, that is undeniable. I know of no other jewellery Maison that was built on love , on family heritage. This has left its mark on us even today. Two people in love wanted to declare their feelings to the whole world, and in 1906, the centre of the world was Paris. They moved into 22, Place Vendôme, opposite the Ritz Hotel which opened two years later, already beginning to attract a cosmopolitan, sophisticated clientele. It was the dawn of travel and holidays at seaside resorts. From 1910, Van Cleef & Arpels was present in Deauville, Cannes, Nice, Monte Carlo, Vichy and Le Touquet. Our two young people were iconoclastic. They were afraid of nothing. They would therefore dare to try everything.

Nicolas Bos : With Poetry of Time we wanted to reveal a story which is little known and which will surprise many people, including those familiar with Van Cleef & Arpels. In fact, although jewellery was rightly at the origin of our fame, very quickly, under the influence of Charles, Julien and Louis, Estelle’s three brothers who joined the company one by one, the brand developed two parallel ranges: watches and curios, the production of which borrowed from the aesthetics and techniques of jewellery, precious stones and materials and rare woods. The first minaudière, for example, a precious evening bag, was invented by Charles Arpels. This creation was made in response to a request by the American Florence Jay Gould who was looking for a way of carrying her personal belongings in a more elegant container than the iron box that she carried with her everywhere. Today, the minaudière is making a strong comeback. It is a fashionable item.

S de Q : Love is at the heart of our Maison, as is poetry. Because nothing can be achieved without the great poets, the visionaries. Everyone knows that in today’s world there is no longer any need for a watch in order to tell the time, there is the computer, the mobile telephone and the television. On the other hand, to say that time is precious, that it is counted, our watches are the very incarnation of time which is, above all, poetry. For us, roses have no thorns, wild animals no claws. Our world is populated by fairies – the Ondine, Libellule and Caresse d’Eole fairies- who help us to make wishes and, of course, grant them.

We are here to facilitate the expression of love; it is never easy to say “I love you”. They wouldn’t make so many films on the subject if that were the case! A watch such as Midnight in Paris, with its beautiful shower of stars, is open to the universe, to mystery. The onlooker breathes more deeply when contemplating it, feeling connected to the cosmos. This watch says that things should not be done by halves, that it is necessary to savour every second of life.

S de Q : By creating extraordinary complications, the world of watchmaking is mainly addressing men, who are fascinated by mechanisms using highly elaborate technology. Men love to open a watch, in the same way that they will open the bonnet of a car to see how it works! We have given greater importance to the tick-tock of the heartbeat than to the seductive tick-tock of the mechanism. This more humanised time is also more moving. It is what a woman hears when hugging her child to her heart. It is that of a woman who is loved. This choice of complications, which are also poetic, lies in the clear understanding of women and their tastes.

N B : The profound identity of the men’s watch is embodied by the PA49, created in 1949 by Pierre Arpels for his own use. It is a great classic of watchmaking, ultra-flat, refined and elegant. We look at watchmaking with the eyes of jewellers. That is why, a few years ago, we asked the best inventors of complications to dream up a time which would represent the three main themes of Van Cleef & Arpels. That is to say: Nature with leaves, flowers, birds and insects; Couture with net, bows and lace; and the world of the Imagination with fairies, stories and myths. These are all motifs that express life and movement. For us the flower is not immobile, it opens, the butterfly does not stay still, it flies away. The result is a specific Van Cleef & Arpels aesthetic: asymmetry. Asymmetry is the mark of the living. And, paradoxically, of harmony.

N B : We worked with the magnificent workshop of Jean-Marc Wiederrecht. This man is a great inventor of mechanisms, but also a poet and watchmaker in the tradition of the masters of the 17th and 18th centuries. Passionate about books on astronomy and astrology, he took on the challenge of poetic time with enthusiasm, and the Midnight in Paris watch is the fruit of this collaboration. This model not only represents a map of the stars down to the very last detail, it is also decorated with real fragments of meteorites, set on the back of its disc.

In 2006, to celebrate our Centenary, we wanted a watch on the theme of the seasons, with a design that imperceptibly metamorphosised as the 365 days of the year went by, parading not only linear time which gives the idea of growing older, but also the opposite, a regenerating, cyclical time. Snowflakes give way to butterflies and trees in flower. Slowness is a challenge in complications that is as difficult to obtain as extreme rapidity. It took a year to make this Saisons watch.

S de Q : We have always seen it as simplistic to cut men off from their sensitivity, their artistic sense. The world is, happily, more complex than the simple man/woman equation. This is very important for us, almost a philosophy. Were the great art collectors not mostly men?

N B : It is the very identity of our brand. First influenced by Art Nouveau, the world of the imagination, mythical nature, the world of painters such as Odilon Redon or, later, Magritte, narration is an inexhaustible source of inspiration from which stories and fairies emerge. Created in the 1940s, the Fairy became an emblem of Van Cleef & Arpels, as demonstrated by our Féerie watch where our fairy’s wing indicates the minutes and the magic wand the hours. Our poetic complications also tell of life today, such as those dreamt up for Romance à Paris, a lover’s walk through the places that symbolise the capital, and Mercredi à Paris, which rediscovers childhood games and multicoloured balloons which escape towards the sky.

S de Q : We are writing the history of Van Cleef & Arpels at the same time as that of our clients. The latter love personalised objects. Thus, the Midnight in Paris model has been transformed into Midnight in Moscow and Midnight in Monte Carlo, with the skies adapted to the climatic geography of the cities.

N B : The original purpose of jewellery was to serve as a talisman, a good luck charm to attract the sympathy of the gods. Were the founders superstitious? Even if they weren’t, they thought that a good luck charm never did any harm. The ladybird taking flight, the stylised four-leaf clover of the Alhambra motif, taken from Islamic architecture and created in 1968. Or the Charms collection. Van Cleef & Arpels has always defended this alliance between popular culture in the noble sense, that is to say universal, and extreme refinement. Our Songe d’une Nuit d’Eté (Midsummer Night’s Dream) collection is as much aimed at Shakespeare connoisseurs as it is at lovers of Harry Potter… Is it a coincidence that our best-selling watches are currently from the Charms and Féérie collections? The very beautiful, classic Cadenas watch of the 1930s is still sold constantly, as is all our Decorative Arts- inspired jewellery.

S de Q : Just last month, we delivered a very beautiful order to a Malayan, the grandfather of 27 grand-children, who wanted an identical yet different piece of jewellery for each of them. He chose the same wooden butterfly in lacquered snakewood, but which had enough variations for it to signify at the same time the blood identity and unique character of each child. A man has just celebrated a twentieth anniversary -of what, remains a mystery- by ordering twenty Tourbillon watches. Recently, a man’s request caught our imagination. He asked us to personalise the watch that he had just bought by engraving on it the words: “Meet at four o’clock”… Every day, somewhere in the world, there is a special order placed with Van Cleef & Arpels.

S de Q : The Duchess of Windsor wanted a necklace which opened and closed according to the zip principal. This masterpiece was created in diamonds and rubies. I will leave you to imagine the problems that needed to be surmounted when cutting the stones. It was an example of the intelligence of the hand pushed to breaking point. Our teams took twelve years to win this splendid challenge. The Zip system, which was finalised in 1950, was offered in a variety of forms and still meets with great success today. Van Cleef & Arpels never says “Impossible”!

S de Q : One of our Mains d’Or (Golden Hands) always kisses his hands to thank them for their jewellery-making genius. Our artistic craftsmen, heirs to expertise that is over a century old, know that they can take anything on because they all work together. They form a chain where he who has over forty years of experience with us rubs shoulders with the eighteen-year-old apprentice. They are researchers. It is Van Cleef & Arpels’ quest to constantly invent, hence their great humility but also their pride. For example, the Mystery Setting, an invisible setting technique patented in 1933, an incomparably original Van Cleef & Arpels method, has just been refined. This technique allows prongs and mounting to be avoided, leaving the stone intact and brilliant. Patience is a vital quality. Eight to ten months are required for the simplest pieces. And new hires practice their art to perfection by working “with blanks” for two years. Stones refuse to be rushed. At the moment we are working on a sublime order, a Mystery Setting ruby necklace. It won’t be delivered until September 2010. Our clients are also patient, they accept these timings. Excellence comes at the price of waiting.

S de Q : The history of the Van Cleef & Arpels family is a fine example of how to behave in times of crisis. In 1939, the Place Vendôme establishment closed. In order to escape Nazism, the family emigrated to the United States, opening a boutique on Fifth Avenue in New York, before setting off to conquer Los Angeles and then Florida. This exile explains why the brand has very close ties with its American clientele and the cinema. Place Vendôme and Fifth Avenue are still our two main sales outlets.

Remaining faithful to the spirit of the founders, we wanted, in spite of the crisis, to continue the publication of this Poetry of Time book, rich in images by Guy Lucas de Peslouan, a master of the photography of objects. And in order to continue this positive attitude, we are preparing to celebrate the 70th anniversary of our establishment in America by creating a new collection entitled California Rêverie, in homage to the landscapes of the West coast. The crisis is not a state, it is a time of change which forces us to plan ahead. The first crisis is birth, the proof being that babies cry. Then, it gets better. From changeover to changeover, we learn to bounce back, to ask ourselves the right questions.

N B : On the subject of historic pieces, we have two policies. In the 1980s, Jacques Arpels began to collect our jewellery and watches. This assortment, which now comprises over 400 pieces, is called The Van Cleef & Arpels Collection. It serves as a reserve for the themed exhibitions that we organise the world over. For example, from 31 October we are organising an exhibition entitled The Spirit of Beauty at the Mori Museum in Tokyo, which uses our Fairy as its emblem. Not only were we the first to open in New York, we are also pioneers in Japan, where we have a network of 15 boutiques which we began developing in 1973. Asia has been an inspiration since the earliest days of Van Cleef & Arpels.

On the other hand, we have opened boutiques, again at 22, Place Vendôme but also in New York, for the sale of historic pieces which we feel represent the quintessence of Van Cleef & Arpels, such as Ludo bracelets, bird clips of the 1950s and large turquoise necklaces from the 1960s. This jewellery and these watches have always been very popular, as auctions testify, where the brand is the most sought-after amongst collectors… In the period that we are currently going through, there is also an obvious search for patrimonial value, a need for authenticity. Buying one of our pieces of jewellery represents as much an investment as buying a work of art. We resell the pieces with absolute guarantees and traceability. When it comes to jewellery, pedigree is essential.

S de Q : A pink-gold skeleton watch. In this model, the seconds go backwards. I love this idea of bringing back, and therefore controlling time, even though it is only a sweet illusion!