Van Cleef & Arpels

Van Cleef & Arpels is a famous French jewelry house; its origins in 1896 lay in the hands of Alfred Van Cleef and his father-in-law, Salomon Arpels. They occupied their first shop in the Place Vendome at number 22, where their premises are still located.  

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Alfred Van Cleef served as an apprentice to Messrs David et Grosgeat before becoming a salesman for the same firm. In 1898, he married his cousin, Esther Arpels. Alfred had a good understanding of the techniques of stone cutting as well as being a skilled administrator; his wife looked after the accounts in the company's infancy.

A third Arpels brother joined in 1912, and his genial personality helped woo important clients including such celebrities as Marlene Dietrich and Maurice Chevalier and Eva Peron for whom a diamond and sapphire Argentine flag brooch was designed in the early 1950s. The platinum-set brooch contains seven baguette-cut diamonds, and hundreds of square-cut deep blue sapphires and circular-cut diamonds, with yellow diamonds in the flag's central sun motif.The company also designed the tiara of Grace Kelly when she became the princess of Monaco in 1956.

The firm's pre-1920 jewelry is characterised by fluid lines, graceful curves, color, and a poetic sense of movement, evident of the Art Nouveau style.

For the coronation of Farah Pahlavi, the former empress of Iran, Van Cleef & Arpels received the order of designing and building a crown in 1967. The 4-pound pearl, ruby, diamond and emerald crown she received at her 1967 coronation took Pierre Arpels of Van Cleef & Arpels six months to make. Although she had to leave many of her jewels behind when she left with her husband in exile in the late 1979, her crown is still in the Iranian Crown Jewels, located in the Iranian Central Bank in Tehran.

Gucci produces a line of beauty products using the Van Cleef & Arpels brand name.

Van Cleef & Arpels has ten boutiques in the U.S. in New York, Beverly Hills, Bal Harbour, Florida, Boca Raton, Florida, Chevy Chase, Maryland, Chicago, Costa Mesa, California, Honolulu, Manhasset, New York, and Palm Beach. Two new locations will be in Boston, Las Vegas, and San Francisco.

American pop diva Mariah Carey is known to wear only Van Cleef and Arpels jewelry. The ring on her finger, her trademark butterfly, was specially made for her by Van Cleef and Arpels.^{[citation needed]}