Lightness

What could be a better illustration of Lightness than feathers floating in the air?

Lightness is the first of Italo Calvino’s six memos for the next millennium, by which he means “a subtraction of weight”. This room explores the concept as a characteristic of Van Cleef & Arpels jewelry. Lightness can first be discerned on pieces made during the 1920s. At that time, “white jewelry” was particularly in vogue. It gave pride of place to light and consisted of delicate creations adorned with diamonds, almost always mounted on platinum. The invention of new stone cuts, such as the baguette cut, favored the emergence of the geometric shapes of Art Deco. The jewelry of this period was in dialogue with the slender and refined silhouettes being designed by the couturiers, and the geometric forms favored by architects and painters.