ACCESSORIES

Van Cleef and Arpels’ Windows Go on an Extraordinary Adventure

It can be a tad intimidating being the neighbor of Manhattan’s best dressed window’s (Bergdorf) but this year Van Cleef and Arpels pulled out the big guns and hired renowned creative Douglas Little to give...


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It can be a tad intimidating being the neighbor of Manhattan’s best dressed window’s (Bergdorf) but this year Van Cleef and Arpels pulled out the big guns and hired renowned creative Douglas Little to give some pizzazz to their holiday windows, which coincide with their newest high jewelry collection, Voyages Extraordinaires, inspired by Jules Vernes. As Nicolas Bos, President & CEO and Creative Director of Van Cleef & Arpels explained, “Having been located at the historic corner of 57th Street and 5th Avenue for over 70 years, we really wanted to participate in the magical holiday atmosphere that exists in New York City and when I met Douglas, I knew that his strong interest in 18th and 19th century curiosities as well as in contemporary art and fashion, would give a good perspective to animate our new collection.” Go see for yourself and be sure to pop out your ear buds, Erik Sanko has composed ethereal music to accompany each window that can be heard on the street. Below Douglas Little shares his thoughts on the windows with W:

“When I first heard the story about the collection I thought it could be really fun to make the windows into toy theaters based on Jules Verne stories. From there I did extensive research on French and Italian toy theaters from the 18th Century. What makes them so interesting is that they are composed of many layers. What also gives them their charm is how low-fi they are. They are at once child like yet terribly sophisticated.”

—Cator Sparks