The Van Cleef & Arpels piece is inspired by an exuberant German bridal crown.
One senses that the establishment of Van Cleef & Arpels was preordained. The husband and wife Alfred Van Cleef and Estelle Arpels — the son of a diamond cutter and the daughter of a gemstone dealer — opened the French maison in 1906 in Paris’s First Arrondissement, where they began making wristwatches and jewelry adorned with wood and gems inspired by good luck charms. During the following decades, the brand continued to innovate — inventing the minaudière and creating necklaces that could be worn as bracelets — and in 1933 it introduced the Mystery Setting, in which
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