Move or Zip

Couture gave Van Cleef & Arpels its idea: the zip fastener, new on dresses in the 1930s, suggested by the Duchess of Windsor and patented for the house by Renée Puissant in 1938. The finished Zip of 1950 slides shut to turn a necklace into a bracelet. Valérie Messika's starting point was family. In 2007 she remembered her father sliding diamonds between his fingers and set three of them loose in an open gold cage on a chain, where they travel from end to end as the wrist moves.