Van Cleef & Arpels Unveils Brilliant Excursion Prime Jewellery Assortment – WWD

ROME — Van Cleef & Arpels jewelry occasionally is encouraged by means of “imaginary places or fairy tales,” however for its unedited high jewelry assortment unveiled on Wednesday night time in Rome, it used to be extra about “real journeys through history and art,” mentioned president and eminent government officer Nicolas Bos.

Particularly, the Brilliant Excursion, which provides the identify to the gathering and easiest embodies the cultural revel in pervasive within the 18th and nineteenth century.

The Brilliant Excursion used to be “a way for a lot of young people, artists and creators to educate themselves to discover art and culture traveling from London, Paris or Germany across Europe, and Italy was of course a main destination,” Bos defined.

Van Cleef & Arpels staged the presentation at Rome’s Villa Medici, the Academy of France within the Italian capital, which used to be on the middle of the Brilliant Excursion.

All over the property and the terrace overlooking the town, with the support of actors, the corporate introduced postcards of one of the most major towns thought to be a Excursion Should-see: a serenade in Neapolitan to a type dressed in a parure on one finish, musicians below a Wedgwood-like pavilion, or the standard Harlequin persona in Venice jesting in every other nook of the grassland. Extra surprises had been in pack, as Pulcinellas on stilts and a number of other alternative masked characters danced across the grassland generation horses pulled a blonde chariot or raced in the course of the esplanade. Later a manner display throughout dinner, the night time ended with colourful sizzling breeze balloons floating within the sky and an opera singer appearing generation suspended mid-air.

Villa Medici’s “cultural inspiration and celebration of beauty continues today; it’s not only a place of fantastic memories of the past and of Italian Renaissance,” Bos mentioned.

On show used to be a choice of round 70 gorgeous and creative high jewelry items.

“The collection is multidimensional. It blends the traditions of jewelry and decorative arts — such objects were brought back as souvenirs from the Grand Tour — with the idea of once again discovering and mixing periods and cultures,” Bos mentioned. The corporate selected towns that had been renown stops traditionally, taking inspiration from vintage jewellery — Roman, Etruscan, Medieval or Renaissance — “marrying it with our own heritage, style and craftsmanship.”

4 bracelets faithfully reproduced perspectives of Venice, Rome, Florence and Naples, Italy, their bridges, domes and skylines, homogeneous to vintage micro-mosaics, however Bos underscored the intent used to be “to stay away from stereotyped postcard images.” Solely versatile, they had been impressed by means of the bandeaux bracelets standard of the Nineteen Twenties. “Inspiration is very important, like with art and poetry, it is key…what we are looking for is to find the right balance between inspiration and references, without being too obvious or literal.”

Necklaces and bracelets shaped soils and motifs, together with snow-peaked mountains and brooches reproducing Alpine edelweiss. Labored three-dimensionally, sculptural clips comprised antique cameos. Earrings shocked as Baroque girandoles.

“Jewelry is one of the oldest expressions of art, and it’s a universal expression across cultures. It was a bit forgotten, but it has come back, there is a nice exposure and you see more of it in museums and initiatives,” mentioned Bos, who has for years arranged exhibitions around the globe for the emblem and continues to paintings on a number of tasks to “internationally develop the culture of jewelry,” he mentioned. Those come with, for instance, the wave “Garden of Green” show off in Unutilized York on the American Museum of Nationwide Historical past, and the backup of the College of Jewellery Arts’ exhibition “A New Art, Metamorphoses of Jewelry, 1880-1914” in Paris.

Requested concerning the arrival at the scene of fresh manufacturers introducing top jewellery, Bos believes they are able to support “introduce the category and start the journey.” He sees many returning and constant Van Cleef & Arpels purchasers throughout generations, construction “a real strong connection,” even if he realizes that “some collectors also buy different iconic pieces from other brands, similarly to art collectors.”

The Piazza Divina necklace used to be a surprise, reflecting the Baroque structure of Rome’s Saint Peter’s Sq. designed by means of Bernini — a primary trapezoidal branch that provides solution to a 2d one with an elliptical atmosphere. Rings of white gold i’m ready with diamonds, studded with emeralds and sapphires, shaped the choker, punctuated by means of 14 pendeloques in rose gold and diamonds, alternating with motifs that every mixed a pear-shaped diamond and an emerald. On the heart of the necklace, a medallion showcased an oval-cut Ethiopian emerald weighing 13.09 carats, surrounded by means of spherical diamonds.

Impressed by means of the London prohibit, and Canova’s statue at Chatsworth House, the Dea Eterna brooch not hidden the silhouette of the goddess Hebe, perched on a rock of lapis lazuli pouring ambrosia from a distinct segment manufactured from superposed strips of sleek or textured gold and marquise-cut diamonds, which recommend the asperities of rock. The 3-dimensional parts integrated purple sapphire, lapis lazuli and a elegant pearl — a form of tableau, evoking the substitute waterfall put in within the farmlands of the stately house, topped by means of an lavish pavilion within the method of a temple.

Naples impressed the Ninfe necklace, depicting a floral crown, homogeneous to these that may be evident within the mosaics of the ruined Nymphaeum in Herculaneum, a monument devoted to the nymphs. Made from hyperlinks of gadrooned rose gold or diamonds and purple sapphires, they had been joined on the neck to method a 3-dimensional knot. A composition of leaves in gadrooned rose gold, white gold and diamonds, or purple and purple “angel-skin” coral surrounded 3 vividly coloured gem stones. A purple cushion-cut rubellite weighing 24.02 carats used to be accentuated by means of two oval-cut rubellites weighing 12.44 and 11.52 carats of in particular even colour. Rubies, purple sapphires and spessartite garnets had been strewn around the necklace, sparsely articulated for relief, generation the ideas of the leaves at the central motif had been softened and moderately twisted.