ADVENTUROUS, bold, and laden with a lasting legacy, Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson is a book that is as much about imaginative and creative discovery as it is about physical conquest.
Van Cleef & Arpels borrow the title and its feverish allure for uncovering riches from this literary tale with the brand’s largest High Jewellery collection to date. Spanning diamond-encrusted clips to necklaces decked with sapphires, Treasure Island by Van Cleef & Arpels spare no mystique – and just in time for festive shopping too!
Van Cleef & Arpels Treasure Island
As Nicolas Bos, President and CEO of Van Cleef & Arpels, explains “Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island is a book laden with universal resonance and a powerful collective imagination” that is celebrated in the new High Jewellery drop. Van Cleef & Arpels have long maintained their prestigious reputation for high-quality jewellery that is loved and worn among the stars.
The latest release of High Jewellery only elevates this. The finest cut, clarity, colour, and weight of precious stones from across the world reign supreme here, while ornamental clips are each shaped by hand as Van Cleef & Arpels redraws Stevenson’s creative horizons within the decorative arts.
Van Cleef & Arpels Treasure Island
Van Cleef & Arpels Treasure Island
There are three parts to Van Cleef & Arpels’ new jewellery journey: Chapter One: the boat journey; Chapter Two: the exploration of the island; Chapter Three: the quest for treasure. Across the three, over 125 items paint this glittering excitement of adventure and discovery, moving between maritime motifs to cartology and long-lost treasures.
Opening with the adventure at sea, the Maison reconstructs the Hispaniola as a clip, named after the ship in the epic novel, as a sailing boat with five sails in white gold set with diamonds to mimic the linen sailcloths of 19th-century boats. The boat clip riffs off both Steveson’s tale as well as the brand’s own aquatic history as soon after the Maison was founded in 1906, it fashioned a scale model of the Varuna tall mast ship from gold and enamel. Adventure and Van Cleef & Arpels have always come hand in hand.
Van Cleef & Arpels Treasure Island
Three different three-dimensional buccaneer clips also make their way into the collection, each hand-shaped and studded with a fine selection of rubies, pink sapphires, black lacquers, and diamonds (an impressive loot), while the Cordage Infini necklaces and earrings as well as the En Haute Mer transformable necklace and ring mirror sailors knots with figures of eights and boleyn patterns.
Van Cleef & Arpels Treasure Island
Further in the three-part High Jewellery saga, the Coquilles Mystérieuses bracelet evokes a popular style of the 18th century, Rococo ornaments, with a shell-like fan shape. With the articulate repetition in the piece, the clasp is hidden when worn, adding to the thrill of mystery.
The collection culminates with the hidden treasure: rings that echo the grandeur of long-lost Oriental and Victorian treasure, made with multilevel structures, each decked by rows of precious stones and then topped with one cushion-cut violet or yellow sapphire.
Van Cleef & Arpels Treasure Island
No carat spared, Van Cleef & Arpels’ Treasure Island is spotlighting the gold in the Golden Age of Discovery, with High Jewellery set to quickly become collector’s items, just like the 1883 epic novel. So, where will your next piece take you?
by Ella Mansell