Treasure Island, the latest collection of high jewellery by Van Cleef & Arpels, takes the maison on a voyage of daring, playful creativity. The fantasy is inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1883 novel of the same name, imbuing these creations of extreme beauty with playful, childlike imagination.
It’s not the first time that Van Cleef & Arpels has embraced a literary narrative—past collections have drawn from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Romeo and Juliet, Jules Verne’s Extraordinary Voyages, and the Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, among others.
The jeweller’s Treasure Island adventure is told in three acts. In the first, an ode to sailing the high seas and embarking upon a great unknown. Witness Pirate Jim, a clip named after Stevenson’s protagonist, perched atop the crow’s nest of a schooner. With a telescope in one hand, and an unfurling gold map dotted with diamonds in the other, poised to yell “land ahoy!”.
In the second chapter, buccaneers land ashore to explore an uncharted paradise island. The wonders of nature reveal themselves, as in the Palmeraie Merveilleuse necklace, the masterpiece of the collection. An extraordinarily lush, verdant 47.93-carat cabochon emerald is set on a detachable drop pendant, a gemstone so rare and remarkable that it in fact inspired the entire collection.
Van Cleef & Arpels ends its adventure, fittingly, with the ultimate reward: treasure. Here, the maison luxuriates in a trove of world cultures and aesthetics that have influenced the jeweller’s art for over a century, such as Mughal, Indian, Victorian, Chinese, Hellenistic, Carolingian, Mesoamerican, pre-Columbian, Incan and Mayan.
Take the Splendeur Indienne ensemble of cocktail rings, composed in the style of grand Mughal jewels and with a floral palette. Or the Lumières d’Udaipur earrings, named for Rajasthan’s famed City of Lakes, which evokes the colours of the sun setting over water with an exquisitely matched pair of solar yellow diamonds. Images of faraway beauty and light, and the sense of an adventure waiting to unfold, captured in exquisite jewels.
Photography Darren Gabriel Leow
Styling Jasmine Ashvinkumar
Hair Nikom Noikham
Make-up Sukhon Looknam Srimarattanakul
Model Marina Freydenberg/A1 Models
Photographer’s assistant Fried Rice
The April 2025 ‘Movement’ issue of Vogue Singapore is available to pre-order online.
