In conversation with Van Cleef & Arpels collaborator Alexandre Benjamin Navet
The French artist talks about transforming the brand's luxury boutiques into verdant havens for jewellery lovers.
It seems like the flowers at Van Cleef & Arpels have been given a new lease of life as they take root at and creep onto the walls of its boutiques.
A prized emblem that has moulded the jewellery house into the nature-loving brand it is today, the flowers reveal themselves in various and variegated shapes as reinterpreted by French artist and the winner of the 2017 Grand Prix Design Parade Toulon Van Cleef & Arpels, Alexandre Benjamin Navet.
Marrying the House’s iconic blossoms with a recurrent motif in his own work that is the vases, Navet embellishes every part of the retail spaces with a joyful blend of pastel drawings and architecture to conjure a sketchbook feel. His reimagination sees the stems and petals of the flowers cut out and reassembled into colourful compositions as though they were emerging from curved sculptures.
The original design, sketched out in pencil at his studio in Paris, thoroughly reflects Navet’s attachment to spontaneous outlines and vivid, luminous colour. These signature styles of his are evident in the design details of the stores—from the window displays to the large-format scenery installed that has been personalised to match the destination. The young artist talks more about the venture and his creative process as follows.
How did you prepare for this collaboration?
I did a lot of research for this project and that included studying and gathering materials. The first sketchbook that I presented to the Maison was full of drawings of paintings from the Louvre, of Florentine and French art in particular. I began like that, and then the “follies” arrived: the flowers took on the form of a fantasy.
What techniques did you use for the window displays?
The flowers and stems were drawn using pencils with strong vegetal pigments that yield deep colours that I didn’t mix. I then cut them up, reassembled them and stuck them down to create unique drawings. They are flowers that seem to have grown in and emerged from the vases—I wanted to create the illusion that they had appeared in the windows during the night as if by magic.
About the large-format scenery, how was that different from the first part?
The in situ scenery was a development of the window displays but on a different scale. We left the scale of jewellery behind and moved to that of interior design. For the architecture, I concentrated more on making panels for wall sections and arches. The idea was to create large-scale elements alongside details that are adaptable to each boutique.
What kind of impression has this collaboration left you with?
I was struck by its energy. Our encounter focused on the image of the flower and that required me to step outside my familiar codes. It was, and still is, a real pleasure to work on this project. I didn’t impose anything and nothing was imposed on me: it’s a dialogue. It was important to me that this collaboration should have a human dimension, and it does.
