Led by the French-born CEO Catherine Rénier, Van Cleef & Arpels, founded in 1896, continues to be one of the most culture-driven high jewellery houses in the world. With the epic Fascinating Egypt collection revealed earlier this year, and the new innovative chapter of the brand’s classic four-leaf clover, Alhambra, coming out recently, we spoke to Rénier in Paris about leading a sparkling powerhouse of this magnitude.

“My role in a sense, is respecting the maison’s heritage. It goes beyond heritage – it’s the identity that the maison has built through its expression. It’s the innovation, the story and the values expressed over its lifespan,” she says. The Fascinating Egypt high jewellery collection, featuring approximately 180 intricate creations, draws on centuries of fascination with Ancient Egypt, from Napoleon’s campaigns in 1798 to the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922 and the ensuing waves of Egyptomania that swept through European art and design. This is not the first time the maison has explored Egypt. However, this time, they took it a step further, including more pop culture references, like Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra, and exploring blockbuster movies like The Mummy. “That’s how you continue the story,” says Rénier. “You enrich, you challenge, you stretch the narrative further. We take the past as a source of identity, as a way of expressing ourselves, and enhance it with a lot of research and challenges in the craftsmanship.” Within the collection, the artisans challenged themselves on recutting stones, matching the straight lines and angles in classical Egyptian architecture.

The collection marks Rénier’s personal favourite since she became CEO. “[Fascinating Egypt] has been very fulfilling at many levels. It’s a fantastic story in which one and all can immerse themselves because Egypt talks to the public at large,” she says. “It brings all of us back into our childhood and looking at these mysterious cultures; Egypt has been a very strong source of inspiration in the world around us. To explore that topic is a true challenge, but also very rewarding for us. And the outcome – in the way we explored it widely, in the colours we used, in the craftsmanship of stone cutting – is a strong sense of pride.”

For Rénier, education is a key pillar in both her leadership at Van Cleef & Arpels and her own experience in her role. “I’ve been here for almost 17 years, so I’ve learned a lot.” Rénier joined Richemont Group at the beginning of her career, and joined at Van Cleef & Arpels in 2003, working until 2017 in various roles, before becoming president and CEO in 2024. “I’ve learned the importance of timelessness,” she says. “With the world we live in today, everything is fast. Nothing lasts very long, and you’re onto the next thing. I think it’s the way we are wired, through the speed of our environment and the speed of information.” Despite this environment, she adds “a maison like ours has remained with its own approach to time. We don’t think about the trends of today or tomorrow. The creations of today are destined to be meaningful in the future. It’s an interesting challenge and way of looking at how to make choices in today’s world.”

This humanity within the work that Van Cleef & Arpels produces is paramount to achieving this timelessness. In the new evolution of the Alhambra collection, the creation studio has magicked up a special intense hue of pink through the gold-ruby process, in which the colour is generated by fine gold particles in the composition of the material. It’s taken the studio five years to perfect the colour, shape and concentration, resulting in a hypnotic translucence featuring tiny bubbles. The process for a new collection begins in the innovation department, where the design studio thinks of an expression before the workshop’s mock up the idea through testing. “It’s a collective process, in which I will step in at each key and crucial moment of decision,” says Rénier. “For the new expression of Alhambra, there was a lot of work in cutting and polishing to give this unique ‘Bombay’ shape to the motif, and of course a lot of work in the making of this colour.”

The magic is in the reflective element of the new pieces created from the enamelling. Born in 1968, Alhambra has gone through many stages of expression: new sizes, such as the 2006 larger Magic Alhambra and smaller Sweet Alhambra; new materials including wood and porcelain; exploratory techniques like guilloché in 2018; and now the introduction of the newly created colours.

It’s a playful, yet intricately detailed take on the maison’s lucky charm, one which feels both relevant in its 2000s-like pop of pink, and for what it promises for the future. “Going back to craftsmanship, we protect the gesture and the human side of our work in order to remain true to who we are today, while embarking on the world of tomorrow,” says Rénier. The long view never looked so good.

Taken from our newly launched 10 Watches & Jewellery supplement, which comes with every new issue of 10 Magazine Australia.

‍Photographer VALENTIN ABAD
‍Text ROXY LOLA
Set designer CAROLINE NEDELEC
‍Production CAROLINE BENAOUDA

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