FD IN FOCUS
The Zip Necklace by Van Cleef & Arpels
It was Renée Puissant (née Van Cleef) who oversaw the creation of this VCA icon, and she was almost certainly the inspiration for most of the jewels created for the Duchess of Windsor between 1935 and 1940. From her conversations with the Duchess, there emerged a revolutionary idea of the ZIP necklace, inspired by the zip fastener that was becoming a feature of elegant wardrobes in the 1930s. She asked Renée to work on the creation of a flexible necklace in the form of a zip fastener. It was not to be until 1951. Unfortunately, Renée had taken her own life during the war, in 1942.
