Van Cleef & Arpels’ love letter to colour: the freshly bloomed Fleurs d’Hawaï
There’s an interesting stillness inside the quiet of a greenhouse. Branches and blossoms waft overhead, brushing your shoulders as you walk down narrow flower-filled pathways, bringing you face-to-face with floral beauty in all its different forms: delicately frilled petals, vibrant, sensuous colours, heady scents, tiny buds and large, blousy blooms. With one key difference at the Queen Elizabeth Walled Garden at Dumfries House—precious jewelled flowers from Van Cleef & Arpels studded amongst the natural beauty.Also read: Love, legacy and leadership: Van Cleef & Arpels enters a new era under Catherine Rénier
An exploration of Van Cleef & Arpels’ Flora universe, displayed at Dumfries House, Scotland
Flowers have always represented a rich seam of interest and inspiration for the artisans of Van Cleef & Arpels, who excel when recreating the natural world in golden, jewelled form. The archives are full of floral fantasies rendered into jewellery and timepieces throughout the decades, from a Daisy brooch dating back to 1907, to a Mystery Set Peony clip from 1937, to stylised Frivole petals in the 2000s. Few can capture flowers’ delicacy and joy as well as Van Cleef & Arpels, and this year at Dumfries House in Scotland, the maison presented a beautiful new addition to their floral universe: Fleurs d’Hawaï.
The beautiful Van Cleef & Arpels Rose Garden at Dumfries House, Scotland
A walk-through the maison’s rich archives of floral history
Van Cleef & Arpels’ popular Frivole collection
Anyone familiar with the wonders of the natural world will know that the most vibrant colours actually occur right in nature, and the beauty of colour in nature lies in its elusive transformability. What looks graphic and vibrant under the noonday sun turns transient and delicate in the golden hour, or clear and bright in the early morning light. With Fleurs d’Hawaï, Van Cleef & Arpels have placed colour and light and movement at the forefront, creating freshly bloomed flowers that glow with light and life.
Worn view of the Fleurs d’Hawaï earrings, pendant, ring and secret watch
Worn view of the Fleurs d’Hawaï ring
“The petals, you almost want to grab them; the detail of the leaf gives it that blooming feeling,” Catherine Rénier, CEO of Van Cleef & Arpels, tells us onsite in Glasgow, a tray of glittering jewels in front of her. “It’s a very naturalistic interpretation, the leaf is curved, the angle of the petal looks like a natural flower. So this one is very, very much trying to be as much as possible like a real flower.” This lifelike interpretation, of flowers that look like they’ve just bloomed, or have fallen in a breeze and landed, just so, on the wearer’s finger, was not without its challenges. “The idea was really to have a collection that was very colourful, and to have the petals as five stones in the spirit of the original collection from the late ’30s. There is the amethyst which is purple and very warm; the aquamarine, set on white gold for the delicacy of the bloom and to give it transparency.” There are also the golden rays of citrine, the joyful warmth of pink rhodolite, and the effervescence of green peridot, their luminosity enhanced by a generous pear-cut.
Fleurs d’Hawaï ring, large model, 18K yellow gold, citrines, round diamonds
Fleurs d’Hawaï pendant, medium model, 18K white gold, aquamarines, round diamonds
“We changed the shape of the flower, making it a little thinner and giving it dynamism,” Rénier says. “One of the challenges was to have this very unique setting at the back where the gold is there enough to protect the stone but at the same time does not take away from the lightness of the petal when you look at it from the front. In terms of jewellery technique, a lot is also done in this collection for it to be worn all day. It needs to be comfortable, it needs to be wearable but it also has to have enough weight, you know, to have a presence.“All of that balance between presence, design, volume and weight and wearability is, according to me, the mastery of the jeweller to make the right call, the right decision with the studio, on how we make it happen. Where you place the clip system, so that when you wear the clip, it doesn’t bend; or when you wear it as a pendant, it falls perfectly, and doesn't turn. It’s how you place the flower on the ring for it to fall perfectly between your fingers and you don't even feel it.”
Artisans assemble the Fleurs d’Hawaï secret watch. Sealing of the case
Positioning of the watch module inside the case
Positioning of the watch hands on the dial
Assembling the rotating lid on the corolla
Assembling the corolla and watch bezel
Setting the rhodolites
Fleurs d’Hawaï secret watch, 18K rose gold, pear-shaped rhodolites, white mother-of-pearl, round and pear-shaped diamonds, Swiss quartz movement
It’s a level of craftsmanship that the maison has been honing and preserving for decades, the openwork structure crafted using the lost-wax casting technique. It is central to the Fleurs d’Hawaï collection, in order to truly pay service to the beauty of the stones. “This collection is very driven by the heritage, but definitely as well by the stone availability and selection,” Rénier says. Stringent selection criteria to find the best, most beautiful gems, ensured that the highest levels of colour, clarity and glow were achieved across every piece. “We were guided by the stone selection and the stone availability. How much can you find in terms of quality and quantity and pairing?”After all Fleurs d’Hawaï is, at its heart, a love letter to colour, whether lying delicately across the fingers, dangling from a chain or concealing the face of a secret watch. The shades found on flowers’ velvety petals, matched in the deep pink of a rhodolite; or the fresh green of foliage reflected in a sparkling peridot. The collection is as close as it comes to preserving an eternal bloom—and keeping it by your side forever.
NOW READ
Icon of icons: Van Cleef & Arpels Alhambra
There is a love story in every Van Cleef & Arpels Poetic Complication timepiece