School Of Fine Jewellery L’École Van Cleef & Arpels Comes To Dubai

This month, L’École Van Cleef & Arpels is opening doors to the secret world of jewellery and watchmaking for the first time in the Middle East.

Founded with the support of the Maison Van Cleef & Arpels in Paris in February 2012, L’École Van Cleef & Arpels is the world’s first school established for the general public to discover the Savoir-Faire, history and culture of fine jewellery and watchmaking. A school like no other, it presents a unique opportunity to enrich knowledge through experimentation and dialogue.

Although located in an 18th century mansion in Place Vendome, L’École travels around the world in a spirit of values of open sharing and transmission. As part of its nomadic program, L’École makes its Middle East debut from the 7th to the 25th of November 2017.

The curriculum of L’École Van Cleef & Arpels is built around three themes: Art History of Jewellery, Savoir-Faire, and the Universe of Gemstones. You can enrol for one or several courses as you wish, according to your interest, taste, or level of knowledge. The courses are led by professionals in their respective fields: jewellers, art historians, gemologists and watchmakers. To ensure a bespoke experience, each course is limited to a maximum of 12 students.

In light of inspiring the youth, L’ÉCOLE also invites a young audience to develop its creativity while discovering a new world of jewellery design. Six creative workshops for children and adolescents from 5 to 16 will offer them the opportunity to explore the creative professions. These will take place through local schools’ collaborations during the week and will be open to the public during the weekends.

Synergizing jewellery and culture, L’ÉCOLE unites esteemed institutions of the Gulf in evening conversations. Curiosity and dialogue are the watchwords of these exceptional occasions where an art historian from L’ÉCOLE and a local expert discuss different chapters of the world of jewellery. As part of its enduring links with art and culture, L’ÉCOLE partners with Middle-Eastern educational and cultural institutions in collating a series of activations within Hai d3. L’ÉCOLE also strives to cultivate and nurture emerging designers by showcasing the works of the finalists of the Van Cleef & Arpels Emerging Design Prize 2017.

“We are excited to announce the Middle East debut of L’ÉCOLE in a year when we celebrate our 5th Anniversary,” said Marie Vallanet-Delhom, President of L’ÉCOLE Van Cleef & Arpels. “During the past five years, more than 16,000 students from all over the world have benefited from the educational content of L’ÉCOLE in Paris and abroad.”

Travel with Minerals

A key exhibition, which we can exclusively reveal, is an educational presentation of minerals curated in collaboration with MINES Paris Tech. L’ÉCOLE Van Cleef & Arpels and MINES ParisTech present an exhibition around five cabinets of curiosity. Each cabinet invites visitors to travel through a different journey, material, space, art, jewellery, science, and techniques.

This mineralogical collection, preserved at the historic Vendôme Hotel for over two hundred years, is recognised as one of the most complete and spectacular mineralogical collections in the world. Today, it is comprised of around 100,000 samples, including 4,000 on exhibit, and over 2,900 species of minerals.

The school of jewellery arts will be based at Hai d3, in the Dubai Design District, from the 7th to the 25th of November, 2017.