7

W

hen American

socialite Wallis

Simpson found

herself at a

particularly tiresome social

engagement one evening in the

1920s, there was no polite way

to gauge the time. Ladies didn’t

wear timepieces and, even if they

did, it would be a faux pas to check

the clock mid-party.

So Simpson approached her

favoured Parisian maison, Van

Cleef & Arpels, with a design brief

for a jewelled bracelet with a flat,

rectangular front that hid a watch

face from view. Cast in platinum

and accented with diamonds, the

tiny clock was angled towards the

wearer’s eye so a quick downward

glance would reveal how much

small talk was left to endure.

A replica of this watch, called

the Cadenas, along with 360 other

exquisite and innovative designs

dating from the first days of Van

Cleef & Arpels in 1896, are on

display this month at the Today

Art Museum in Beijing. The

large and diverse exhibition,

When Elegance Meets Art, includes

a diamond chandelier necklace

made for Queen Nazli of Egypt

and a bold, lion-themed choker

which belonged to the Queen of

Hollywood, Elizabeth Taylor.

The Barquerolles choker, a

gold-and-diamond set studded with

two perfect emeralds, was a gift

from Richard Burton to mark the

birth of Taylor’s first grandchild in

1971. It was nicknamed “the granny”
      and at the time she said it made her
      heart start “clicking like a castanet”.
      After the success of her first
      foray in design, Wallis Simpson
      regularly called upon the team at
      Van Cleef & Arpels for customised
      accessories. She dreamed up a
      necklace in the style of a zipper,
      composed of diamonds and
      mounted in platinum and white

gold, and the team set to work.

Perfecting this design for Simpson,

however, took Van Cleef & Arpels

almost 20 years, and it wasn’t until

1950 that a working example of the

Zip necklace was completed. Fully

adjustable, the piece could be

worn open around the neck or

closed as a bracelet. Simpson, an

avid jewellery collector, never wore

the design; by the time the maison

had mastered the technique, we’re

told, “she had moved on”.

Simpson was not the only

regular client who was a source

of inspiration. One evening, after

witnessing New York socialite

156 GOURMET TRAVELLER

Clockwise from

top left: Van Cleef

& Arpels’ Mystère

IV gold, platinum

and diamond

necklace,

designed for

France’s first

female test

pilot in 1956,

is featured in

the exhibition;

Beijing’s Today

Art Museum;

Van Cleef’s

Minaudière,

created in 1933.

A French jewellery maison dazzles Beijing with

a retrospective of its inest pieces it for princesses

and Hollywood royalty, writesSARAH OAKES.

Crowning

glory