Van Cleef & Arpels: The Romantics

It started with a wedding. In 1895, Estelle Arpels, the daughter of a stone dealer, married Alfred Van Cleef, the son of a stone cutter, in Paris. Alfred, with Estelle’s brother Charles, a talented salesman, set up shop on Place Vendôme in 1906, later joined by brothers Julien and Louis.

It took until 1926 for a female member of Van Cleef & Arpels’ respective clans to become involved. That was the year Renée Puissant, Estelle and Alfred’s daughter, came on board as creative director. Her influence is apparent in the kind of intricate yet playful designs for which the brand was to become known, such as 1936’s Cadenas (French for “lock”).

Not only beautiful to look at, Cadenas’ design – a bracelet with a padlock-style feature that concealed a watch, said to be inspired by none other than Wallace Simpson – served a practical function, concealing the timepiece in an era when it was considered improper for a woman to be seen wearing, let alone checking, a watch in public.

As such an example shows, the brands’ watches were intended to be des bijoux qui donnent l’heure (jewels that tell the time). The move into more classic wristwatches came from an equally practical problem: Pierre Arpels, son of co-founder Julien couldn’t find a watch he wanted to wear. He created the Monsieur Arpels (now the Pierre Arpels) – a straightforward round design, but for the three small spheres (the now-famous Trois Boules) that replace each pair of lugs.