What do jewels and the ballet have in common? It depends on whom you ask. The most obvious answer—a devotion to beauty—felt almost too neat when I stepped into Van Cleef & Arpels’s newest exhibition at its Raffles Hotel Singapore boutique earlier this week.
Devoted to the maison’s beloved Ballerina clips, the exhibition is a jewel box in the most literal sense: intimate, luminous, and quietly moving. More than 30 clips are on display, spanning works from the 1940s onward. Each is a marvel of craftsmanship; together, they read like a visual essay on Van Cleef & Arpels’s enduring romance with dance.
Individually, the clips showcase the maison at its most poetic—gold drawn into graceful limbs, diamonds tracing movement, skirts caught mid-twirl in rubies and sapphires. Collectively, they reveal something deeper: a through-line that runs from Louis Arpels’s early fascination with ballet performances at the Paris Opera to the maison’s contemporary Dance Reflections initiative, which supports choreographic heritage while nurturing new voices in dance. This is not inspiration borrowed lightly, but a relationship cultivated over decades.
The range on display is breathtaking. Classical ballets such as Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty sit alongside interpretations of Spanish flamenco, each translated into miniature dancers that feel impossibly alive. These are jewels with posture and presence—objects that seem to remember the music that inspired them.
Among my favourites were the Sequin Dancer clips—one in diamonds, the other in rubies—displayed alongside their couture ancestor: a Sequin necklace from 1947. The dialogue between fashion and jewellery here is especially compelling. Elsewhere, a 1957 Dancer clip in yellow gold, its skirt fanning out in turquoise and rubies, radiates confidence and joy, while a delicate gold powder case etched with a scene from the opening act of Swan Lake captures Odette mid-flight, rendered in diamonds and platinum with astonishing tenderness.
Then there is the delightful fact—one I have just discovered—that Van Cleef & Arpels is notably among the very few jewellery houses to have inspired a full ballet production. In 1967, George Balanchine created Jewels, a three-act ballet inspired by the maison’s stones, craftsmanship, and the jewelled ballerina clips conceived by Louis Arpels in the 1940s.
That history is quietly underscored here by a Dancer clip from the same year, inspired by prima ballerina Suzanne Farrell, who danced the star role in Diamonds, the opening act of Jewels—a study in tension, athleticism, and lightness, captured mid-motion. A diamond of the first water, indeed.
The Ballerinas by Van Cleef & Arpels exhibition is on display at Les Jardins Secrets, Raffles Arcade, Singapore, until 10 March 2026. Go for the beauty; stay for the story—and perhaps leave thinking about how jewels, like dance, are at their best when they move us.
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