Today I went to the Van Cleef & Arpels exhibit at The Cooper...

Today I went to the Van Cleef & Arpels exhibit at The Cooper Hewitt with my friend Kei Chi.  There was some amazing jewelry there.  It’s crazy how futuristic and modern some of it looks, even though it was made in the 1920s and 1930s.  Attached are some of my favorite pieces, that I was able to find photos of.

They didn’t have photos of the very best pieces on the guide or on their website, which I find really annoying.  It’s always like that with special exhibits - museums never let you take photos, but then they don’t have photos available for you to buy in postcard form.  Your only choice is to spend a lot of money on the exhibition book, which I didn’t want to do…

I LOVED the pieces that transformed into multiple pieces.  For example, the backs of some necklaces could be removed to make bracelets, necklace pendants could be removed to make brooches, or two bracelets could be combined to make a necklace.  You’ll be seeing this in my Fall/Holiday 2011 line.  I have one piece in particular, that got rave reviews during market week.  At first glance, it’s a long necklace, but you can remove the back, and suddenly you have a shorter necklace and a wrap-around bracelet.  Three looks in one.  Not bad.

All photos were taken from the Cooper Hewitt website