“Jewelry should be about pleasure,” Patrick Jouin says. To update a venerable boutique once patronized by the Duchess of Windsor and Princess Grace of Monaco, he opened up the warren of rooms that had filled the 2,500-square-foot space, which occupies part of an 18th-century mansion on the Place Vendôme. Next, he created just three salons on two levels. They're connected by a staircase hidden behind the curved walls of a double-height rotunda, with its cascading chandelier of handblown Murano glass balls. Decorative elements represent the arcadian fantasy of the Van Cleef aesthetic. Branches, blossoms, and butterflies are hand-carved into oak boiserie. Vitrines showcase mannequins with fairy wings.
STANDOUT At this gallery of African art and objects, a partition that looks like solid concrete is actually clad in a composite made from recycled newspaper.
“Jewelry should be about pleasure,” Patrick Jouin says. To update a venerable boutique once patronized by the Duchess of Windsor and Princess Grace of Monaco, he opened up the warren of rooms that had filled the 2,500-square-foot space, which occupies part of an 18th-century mansion on the Place Vendôme. Next, he created just three salons on two levels. They're connected by a staircase hidden behind the curved walls of a double-height rotunda, with its cascading chandelier of handblown Murano glass balls. Decorative elements represent the arcadian fantasy of the Van Cleef aesthetic. Branches, blossoms, and butterflies are hand-carved into oak boiserie. Vitrines showcase mannequins with fairy wings.
