20, Place Vendôme is the birth place of Van Cleef & Arpels House, a renowned address for high jewellery and Parisian elegance.
The Patrick Jouin & Sanjit Manku interior designer agency has designed this extraordinary boutique like a typical Parisian apartment.
A unique savoir-faire has been conjured around several métiers such as sculptors, plasterers, metalworkers, cabinet-makers to create a never-seen-before ensemble dedicated to this project.
The Lighting plays a crucial role to highlight each of the different craftsmanships ; it creates a dialogue between architecture, wall mouldings, objects et pictural pieces. The whole boutique has been imagined as a jewellery case to showcase the various jewellery collections combining exceptional savoir-faire and high creativity.
The lighting design aimed at creating a cocoon of soft and enveloping luminous atmosphere, associating natural and artificial lights, both of which echo and balance one another as the day runs its close.
On the main floor, very soft lights are focused on specific points coming from the ceiling ; the whole thing evokes organic vegetal shapes, source of inspiration of some jewellery collections.
On the first floor, a combination of indirect and grazing lights bring mouldings into relief. The presence of spotlights goes unnoticed so as to reveal the beauty of the design and the softness of the atmosphere – the library showcasing storytelling elements and some pieces of jewellery is a perfect testimony of the lighting designer intentions.
The soft lighting treatment of the architectural shell of the boutique is enhanced by a state-of-the-art lighting of the jewellery collections.
Numerous lighting tests were conducted on each piece of jewellery to allow a perfect rendering of colour tones of gems. The accuracy in choosing the right angle to direct the light on gems has been instrumental to highlight their beauty.
The use of precise photometry and appropriate lighting devices help to create perfectly tailored lights, often hidden in ironwork.
Each piece of furniture, each architectural element made interior and lighting designers work closely together to achieve the expected finished work – this came to life thanks to a meticulous process of prototypes production, incorporating variables such as choice of shape and materials, quality of shade, levels of brightness, colour tones…
