Van Cleef & Arpels

The business was established in 1896 by Dutch diamond-cutter Alfred Van Cleef and his father-in-law, Salomon Arpels. In 1906, following the death of Arpels, Alfred and two of his brothers-in-law, Salomon (aka Charles) and Julien Arpels, acquired space at 22 Place Vendôme across from the Hôtel Ritz, where Van Cleef & Arpels opened its first boutique. The third Arpels brother, Louis, joined the company in 1913.

Van Cleef & Arpels opened boutiques in holiday resorts such as Deauville, Vichy, Le Touquet, Nice, and Monte-Carlo. In 1925, a Van Cleef & Arpels bracelet with red and white roses fashioned from rubies and diamonds won the grand prize at the International Exposition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Arts.

Alfred and Esther’s daughter, Renée (born Rachel) Puissant, assumed the company’s artistic direction in 1926. Puissant worked closely with draftsman René Sim Lacaze for the next twenty years. Van Cleef & Arpels was the first French jeweler to open boutiques in Japan and China.

Van Cleef & Arpels was charged with the task of making the crown of Queen Nazli of Egypt during the 1930s.

In 1940, Van Cleef & Arpels expanded to the Western Hemisphere, opening its flagship store at 744 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, where it has remained to the present day. The

boutique was entirely redesigned and upgraded to match the elegance of the Paris store in 2013.

In 1966, Van Cleef & Arpels was charged with the task of making the crown of Empress Farah Pahlavi for her upcoming coronation in 1967. A significant challenge in creating the crown was that all the precious stones had to be selected from the Imperial Treasury of Iran, and none of the gems could leave the country, so the work had to be done there. A team was sent to Iran to choose the major gems to use for the crown. After 11 months of work, the company presented the empress with a crown made of emerald velvet set with 36 emeralds, 36 rubies, 105 pearls and 1,469 diamonds.

In 1999, Richemont acquired the firm.