In its quest for excellence with a taste for beauty and harmony, Van Cleef & Arpels has drawn boundless inspiration from the world of dance over the decades. Today, the art of ballet imparts an aura of grace into three new watches reflecting the vision of Poetry of Time unique to the Maison. For the first time, Lady Arpels Ballerines Musicales creations blend music and motion, bringing to life a veritable experience of sight and sound. True to the Van Cleef & Arpels tradition of excellence, each timepiece combines watchmaking expertise, mastery of fine crafts and jewelry savoir-faire to capture the full enchantment of music and dance.
At the crossroads of the arts
The bond between Van Cleef & Arpels and dance dates back to 1920s Paris. Louis Arpels, a fervent ballet lover, often took his nephew Claude to the Opéra Garnier, just a short walk from the Place Vendôme boutique. The Maison’s first ballerina clips were created in the early 1940s, soon becoming one of Van Cleef & Arpels’ signature designs. Their aerial attitudes and the beauty of their attire immediately charmed collectors. Featuring a gold or rose-cut diamond face complemented by a precious head ornament, dancers are depicted with point shoes and a tutu made of diamonds or colored stones that seems to flow, echoing their movements.
This kinship with the world of ballet deepened in the 1950s, when Claude Arpels made the acquaintance of famed choreographer George Balanchine, co-founder of the New York City Ballet. Their shared passion for gems blossomed into an artistic bond that produced Balanchine’s ballet Jewels, first performed in New York in April 1967. Each act of the non-narrative triptych is linked to a particular gemstone and a particular composer: Gabriel Fauré for Emeralds, Igor Stravinsky for Rubies and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky for Diamonds.
