The front facade of the new Van Cleef & Arpels store in Perth. Photograph courtesy of Van Cleef & Arpels. French jeweller Van Cleef & Arpels has brought a touch of Paris to Perth, opening the city’s first high jewellery boutique at 352 Murray Street in the CBD.
At a party following the official launch of the new store this week, a poet typed out poems for clientele on a typewriter, in a nod to the brand’s storied history.
The French maison was famously formed by the marriage of Alfred Van Cleef and Estelle Arpel in 1906 and following World War II, Estelle’s nephew Jacques was known to pick four leaf clovers from his garden in Germigny-l’Évêque to press and give to Van Cleef employees with a poem, as a way of building morale.
The Perth store has a ‘Poetic Salon’ which “offers privacy and allows you to take your time, for the world to slow down for a little bit, for you to enjoy a champagne with us in an intimate space,” says the jeweller’s managing director of Oceania, Julie To.
Joining Louis Vuitton, Tiffany & Co., Chanel, Cartier and Gucci, among others, in the city’s luxury precinct, the new Van Cleef & Arpels maison sits in historic Anchor House, a building that housed a heritage tea merchants back in 1905 – the year before Van Cleef & Arpels opened its first boutique on Place Vendôme in Paris.
These days it’s not tea but French champagne and Western Australian wines which will be served to clientele who visit the boutique – the fourth to open in Australia following two stores in Melbourne and a Sydney store, which opened in 2017.
The high jewellery brand began looking at Perth as a destination about eight years ago, says To. Back then, customers in Perth would often fly to Asia to pick up pieces from the Perlée collection with its golden beads and the Alhambra collection with its good luck motif.
The Perth store has a lounge area, a private wine bar to be used for after-hours talks and conversations, and of course, the jeweller’s inimitable jewellery and timepieces featuring ballerinas, fairies and butterflies.
“We tried to design it like a Parisian apartment,” says To of the dazzling boutique. “We want to welcome you into our home. It can feel intimidating coming into a Van Cleef & Arpels boutique so we wanted it to feel warm and welcoming.”
