At Van Cleef & Arpels, Perlée is a celebration of one of its most enduring design signatures. First introduced in 2008, the emblematic collection has become synonymous with the golden bead – a motif so deeply woven into the house’s visual language that it now feels inseparable from the house itself. Yet its story stretches back much further. The polished spheres first appeared in the late 1940s, animating the joyful Couscous jewels and later finding expression in the twisted gemstone creations of the 1960s before eventually tracing the contours of Alhambra.
Reintroduced for 2026, the collection returns to the motif with renewed focus. New three-row rings in yellow, rose and white gold wrap around the finger like streams of liquid light, their graduated beads creating a gentle rhythm of volume and reflection. Across each surface, a diagonal sweep of diamonds introduces movement and brilliance, the stones appearing to float between the golden spheres thanks to an intricate nail-setting technique.
Elsewhere, vivid sapphires, rubies and emeralds inject colour into the collection. The saturated blue of sapphire, the lush green of emerald and the rich crimson of ruby punctuate the warmth of polished gold, transforming a familiar design language into something unexpectedly contemporary. The result feels less like jewellery and more like punctuation – pieces designed to be layered, stacked and accumulated over time.
Photography courtesy of Van Cleef & Arpels.
