12 Mar 2023
Every year, Van Cleef & Arpels celebrates the arrival of spring, which brings with it a new beginning. In 2023, the Maison will enhance the Lucky Spring collection with two new pendants, a Between the Finger ring and a bracelet. The creations are steeped in poetry, combining gentle floral and animal motifs with the brilliance of ornamental stones to express the grace of awakening nature.
Introduced in 2021, the Lucky Spring collection embodies the Maison’s poetic world and its positive vision of life. This year, Van Cleef & Arpels’ enchanting garden welcomes new pieces that combine two cherished themes of the Maison: nature and luck. With a vibrant palette of rose gold, white mother-of-pearl, onyx, and carnelian, the pieces feature delicate motifs that create shimmering bucolic scenes. Through lily of the valley buds, ladybugs, and plum blossoms, this jewelry collection offers a picture of spring that is both pure and elegant. Each element was patiently considered and designed during the creation process to express the Maison’s messages of luck and joy.
These four new additions expand the Lucky Spring offer, which also includes a long necklace, three bracelets, a clip, and a pair of earrings.
A symbol of renewal and resilience, the plum blossom has the unusual characteristic of blooming in winter. Its blossoming heralds the coming of spring and conveys the idea of vitality and renewed energy. The iridescence of white mother-of-pearl expresses the delicate nature of the five rounded petals. The motif blossoms on a rose gold bracelet that adorns the wrist with a precious flowering. As a pendant, it gently illuminates the hollow of the neck. Demonstrating a particular attention to detail, fine gold pistils highlight the heart of the corollas, enhancing the gleam of the creations.
A key figure in the Maison’s animal world, the ladybug takes on a new role in the Lucky Spring collection. On a Between the Finger ring, the charming creature lives in harmony with a plum blossom and a lily of the valley bud. Brilliant carnelian, deep black onyx, and delicately iridescent white mother- of-pearl harmonize on the piece. An outline of golden beads gently completes the creation. Known to go hand in hand with awakening flora, the lucky animal also adorns a pendant. With its wings spread and ready to fly, the ladybug reveals a slightly rounded body in mirror-polished rose gold. The latter echoes the golden studs that accentuate its wings with sparkling dots.
Van Cleef & Arpels has meticulously selected materials to create a poetic interpretation of the colors of nature and give the pieces a special vibrancy. The Maison’s stone experts favor carnelian with an even, bright orange-red color and a slightly translucent aspect, while they choose onyx for its deep black color and intense luster. The white mother-of- pearl selected features harmonious iridescent shades. The light is vividly captured thanks to rose gold’s tender reflections.
Their excellent savoir-faire is expressed in the precision and meticulousness required during the creation process. Various stages of stone selection, stone cutting, jewelry work, setting, and polishing follow one after the other to bring each piece to life.
The ornamental stones are carefully shaped, before being polished to reveal their true brilliance. The motifs are realized according to the traditional technique of lost-wax casting, then the golden beads are reworked one by one by the craftsmen. The stones are held in their gold case by discreet prongs that are carefully bent. On the pendants, bracelets, and long necklace, each motif has the same decoration on both sides, so that it always appears in its best light. Lastly, a final polishing highlights the beauty of the entire creation.
Since the beginnings, the Maison has drawn its inspiration from the vitality of flora. A Daisy clip appeared in Van Cleef & Arpels’ archives in 1907, one year after its founding. Whether they are imaginary, botanical or wildflowers, plants offer an inexhaustible source of motifs for charms, brooches, and even watches. Chrysanthemums, peonies, and bellflowers come to life in the craftsmen’s hands. Since the 1930s, the Maison has offered majestic interpretations using the Mystery Set technique. Under the influence of the hippie wave and the Flower Power in the 1970s, floral lines became simpler and their colors brighter, like those of the Saint-Louis clips. Nowadays, flora continues to fill contemporary collections: it appears flamboyant in High Jewelry, sparkling on Fleurette creations, and graphic in the Frivole collection.
Considered a symbol of good luck, the delicate creature is a herald of spring. In the world of Van Cleef & Arpels, it is evolving alongside fairies and four- leaf clovers to form an enchanted universe. Although it is usually red, it occasionally features the white hues of mother-of-pearl or bolder nuances such as green and blue thanks to enamel. First portrayed in static form and then with more movement in contemporary creations, it has embellished small pieces like rings, charms, and clips since the 1930s. It would later be combined with other natural elements and cohabit with butterflies, flowers, and turtles in the La Boutique collections during the 1960s and 1970s. More recently, the ladybug has also been a figure of choice for exceptional pieces, from High Jewelry to watchmaking: for example, it inspired a majestic Mystery Set ruby clip in the Palais de la chance Collection in 2012 and the Secret de coccinelle watch, which won the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève in 2018.
