Van Cleef & Arpels is coming to Madison Avenue.
The high jewelry brand, owned by luxury giant Richemont, is expected to open this fall at 690 Madison Avenue, which is the northwest corner of 62nd Street, a site previously occupied by an Hermès men’s store.
Van Cleef & Arpels operates two other stores in New York City, including its flagship on Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, adjacent to Bergdorf Goodman, and in Hudson Yards on the far west side of Manhattan.
“Richemont in the last few years has doubled down on its investment in New York City but particularly on Madison Avenue,” said Matthew Bauer, president of the Madison Avenue Business Improvement District. “In the last two years eight Richemont brands have opened or are in the process of opening on Madison and a ninth Richemont brand, Buccellati, has been very engaged on the avenue.” The Richemont brands are all situated within a five-block stretch of Madison, Bauer noted.
Richemont store projects on Madison, recently completed or in the works, include the Panerai expansion, A. Lange & Sohne relocating and expanding, Jaeger-LeCoultre doubling in size, IWC relocating and expanding, and Peter Millar also relocating, as well as last year’s Chloé opening. In addition, Montblanc opened a new store on Madison Avenue two years ago.
On Madison, Van Cleef & Arpels joins fellow jewelers Graff, De Beers, Kwiat, Fred Leighton, Ippolita, Buccellati, Paul Morelli and Chanel, among others, further establishing the avenue as one of the leading locations for high jewelry in the world. Richemont’s three jewelry maisons — Cartier, which has its flagship on Fifth Avenue; Van Cleef & Arpels and Buccellati — grew 24 percent in Richemont’s first fiscal quarter, which ended June 30.
With the move to Madison, it’s clear that Van Cleef & Arpels is on a path to bring the jewelry brand to wider audiences, though not only via stores. Van Cleef & Arpels currently has an exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City and earlier this year staged an exhibit at the Saudi National Museum in Saudi Arabia. “Jewelry should be accessible to the vast majority of audiences, not just the privileged collectors,” said Nicolas Bos, chief executive officer of Van Cleef & Arpels, while in Saudi Arabia for the opening of exhibit last January. “Jewelry is not only a commercial category and business activity, it’s been a component of art, culture and civilization for as long as humans have been on the planet.”
