Earlier this month, Van Cleef & Arpels unveiled a particular jewellery exhibition mounted in collaboration with Mika Ninagawa, a outstanding Japanese photographer recognized for her deal with—as she places it—the “short-lived radiance of flowers.”
Housed at Hôtel d’Évreux, on Paris’ Place Vendôme, “Florae” gathers greater than 100 Van Cleef & Arpels jewels from the Twenties to the current day, all united by one of many famed French jeweler’s perennial inspirations: flowers.
Van Cleef & Arpels gave Ninagawa carte blanche to create an exhibition of her work introduced alongside its jewels, that are housed in showcases specifically designed to mix into their environment. The result’s a dreamlike stroll by an enchanted, incandescent jardin teeming with electrical, supersaturated colours.
“The maison loves highlighting affiliations between its jewellery creations and the work of artists who draw from the identical sources of inspiration,” mentioned Nicolas Bos, president and CEO of Van Cleef & Arpels, in a ready assertion. “Mika Ninagawa…creates an overarching universe made up of photographs that plunge viewers into the guts of nature. That sense of immersion additionally gave rise to the exhibition’s hanging decor: …a welcoming labyrinth the place guests lose all notions of scale and distance. Surrounded by…images and jewels, they ponder a transcendent dialogue between treasured stones and projected petals. All of it comes collectively in a magical expertise.”
Van Cleef & Arpels and Ninagawa known as on architect Tsuyoshi Tane, founding father of Atelier Tsuyoshi Tane Architects (ATTA) in Paris, to design a spatial dialogue between the 2 inventive mediums of images and jewellery.
Jewels and images are introduced in an immersive Alice in Wonderland–
esque tableau. (Picture: ©Takuji-Shimmura)
The exhibition is organized in three elements, every reflecting a imaginative and prescient of flowers shared by Ninagawa and Van Cleef & Arpels.
The primary part is devoted to a naturalist aesthetic that underscores representations prompted by actuality. Emphasis is positioned on pure colours and flora anatomy, from corollas to petal shapes and textures.
Intertwined flowers, pink and white roses bracelet in platinum, rubies, emeralds, onyx, and yellow and white diamonds, 1924
Asian-inspired lengthy necklace in platinum with sapphires, emeralds, rubies, onyx, and diamonds, 1924
The second half focuses on bouquets, highlighting archival jewels from the maison’s assortment that date from the Thirties and ’40s.
Bouquet clip in 18k yellow gold with sapphires and rubies, 1940, and in situ with different bouquet brooches within the exhibit
Lastly, the final part presents a stylized imaginative and prescient of flora, with reasonable representations of nature giving method to graphic strains, hanging palettes, and a way of movement.
Dahlia excessive jewellery secret watch in 18k white, rose, and yellow gold with diamonds, pink and purple sapphires, rubies, spessartite garnets, and quartz motion, value on request
