Zip

A working zip fastener in gold and stones: pull the tassel and the necklace closes up into a bracelet.

Introduced: 1950 — A jewelry zipper was patented in 1938 on an idea the house credits to the Duchess of Windsor; the house dates the first Zip necklace to 1950, Sotheby's to 1951. Today made only as high jewelry (Zip Antique, Zip Couture).
Designer: Renée Puissant
Idea: The moving element, the screw and the bolt
School: Place Vendôme
Materials: yellow gold, white gold, rose gold, diamond, ruby, sapphire
Moves: slides, opens

The story

In the late 1930s the Duchess of Windsor suggested a jewel based on the zipper, then new to couture, and artistic director Renée Puissant had a jewelry zipper patented in 1938. More than ten years of engineering passed before the first necklace left the workshops in 1950; since 2010 the house has revived it in high jewelry as Zip Antique and Zip Couture.

The ladder

High jewelry Zip Antique Cadence joyeuse transformable necklace On request
High jewelry Zip Couture Boucle Mystérieuse necklace, white and rose gold, Traditional Mystery Set sapphires, diamonds On request

Prices as published by Van Cleef & Arpels in euros, October 2026.

Lineage

Answered by · 1976
Menottes dinh van, dinh van (1976)
A quarter century after the Zip turned a working fastener into a necklace, Menottes made the clasp the whole jewel.