Van Cleef & Arpels’ new High Jewelry collection brings together the whole animal kingdom in a tribute to Noah’s Ark with the set featuring slender giraffes, mischievous monkeys, colourful parrots and a tender pair of penguins. 

Interpreted by artists over the centuries, this founding story has today inspired the Maison to create some 60 animal couples in the form of clips. Escorted by three imaginary creatures, they express all the vitality and enchantment of the natural world in a palette of precious, fine and hard stones. A fresh vision of Van Cleef & Arpels’ menagerie, in which creativity, poetry and savoir-faire are intertwined.

Inspired by nature since its foundation, the Maison this year pays a special homage to fauna, depicted in all its richness and diversity. From every continent, from lush countryside to thick jungle, from the earth to the sky: rabbits, elephants, koalas, owls and toucans advance two by two in the collection L’Arche de Noé racontée par Van Cleef & Arpels. 

This universal theme offers the Maison an opportunity to revive its animal range, while expressing its characteristic values of love and affection in over sixty duos.

The deer is inseparable from her stag, while the Morpho butterfly flutters in the air beside its companion. Majestically accompanying the procession, the imaginary creatures in Mystery Set – Pegasus, the phoenix and the unicorn – are the only ones to be presented singly.

Whether alone or in couples, these creations renew the tradition of clips that has been a feature of Van Cleef & Arpels since its foundation. Distinguished from brooches by their double fixing pins, these pieces have enabled the Maison to express its key themes over the years, from birds and flowers to emblematic ballerinas. 

Today, the collection’s clips bring about a joyful encounter with the animal kingdom that takes shape in a multiplicity of precious materials. The glitter of diamonds and coloured sapphires stands alongside the fires of opals, the lustrous sheen of onyx and luminous turquoise. 

Carefully selected hard stones adorn flat and three-dimensional surfaces, intricately engraved and polished to give shape to the chosen animal. The varied postures, vivid shades and refined details recreate the beauty of life, magnified by virtuoso High Jewelry savoir-faire.

The animal theme that this year takes pride of place in the collection L’Arche de Noé racontée par Van Cleef & Arpels has been at the heart of the Maison’s creations since its earliest years. Beginning in the 1910s, diamond feathers and birds seemed to alight on jacket lapels or hats. Since then, winged creatures have continued to enchant Van Cleef & Arpels, inspiring its interpretations of the hovering flight of hummingbirds, the tenderness of lovebirds – depicted as a family on a branch – or the courtship displays of birds of paradise. 

Butterflies, dragonflies and ladybirds complete this ode to lightness and movement. The positive symbolism of these pieces is complemented by the playful tone of the animals from ‘‘La Boutique’’. Created by the Maison in 1954, this collection consisted of more accessible day jewelry, among which some clips became genuine icons, collected by illustrious clients. The winking Chat malicieux, the Lion ébouriffé with its yellow gold mane and the coral squirrel took up their places in Van Cleef & Arpels’ menagerie, which has continued to grow as time goes by. 

While the 1970s brought horses and elephants, the High Jewelry and Watchmaking creations of the 2000s contributed a panorama of animals from around the world, including antelopes, ring-tailed lemurs, pink flamingos and polar bears. Benevolent, touching and majestic by turns, this fauna is today revealed as one, thanks to a unique voyage on board Noah’s ark.