How turquoise is celebrated by Van Cleef & Arpels, Cartier and Bulgari: the stone’s modern fans include Emily Blunt, Eva Mendes and Richemont’s new CEO Nicolas Bos, but it has a centuries-long history

Jul 28 , 2024

The latest Polo Ralph Lauren x Naiomi Glasses collection is just one example of how turquoise continues to appeal to new fans. Photos: Handout

Tiffany & Co. included it in its Blue Book 2024: Tiffany Céleste high jewellery collection while Polo Ralph Lauren’s collaborated with Native American textile artist and skateboarder Naiomi Glasses

Van Cleef’s Alhambra, Perlée and Le Grand Tour collections all feature the stone, as do Bulgari Mediterranea high jewellery, Cartier’s 1920s pieces and Yvonne Léon’s work

Turquoise has had a diverse array of fans over the centuries – from the ancient Egyptians to Aidan Shaw in Sex and the City. Add to that list Nicolas Bos, the incoming chief executive of luxury group Richemont, who recently vacated the same role at storied French jewellers Van Cleef & Arpels. “It’s the colour of summer skies. So there’s something that you look for when you’re creating jewellery and you want to create a kind of happy and joyful feeling. It’s a fantastic stone,” he says.

Turquoise has been used in some of the Van Cleef & Arpels’ most precious creations, including the incredible 1974 bib necklace Eva Mendes wore to the 2009 Golden Globes; and in last year’s Le Grand Tour high jewellery collection which included the Chant des Gondoliers necklace of lush beads of turquoise with sapphires and diamonds.

Actress Eva Mendes at the 2009 Golden Globes. Photo: WireImage

Just in April, at the launch of Tiffany & Co.’s Blue Book 2024: Tiffany Céleste high jewellery collection in Los Angeles, actress Emily Blunt stole the show in a stunning turquoise-embellished necklace paired with a white dress.

Bos says it’s been an important stone throughout Van Cleef & Arpels’ history. Three years ago it was used extensively in a Perlée collection centred on the use of turquoise.

“It’s been used quite a lot since the very early days of the house – the 1910s, 1920s. During the art deco [period] in particular, in the Egyptian revival period, turquoise was of course a very important stone,” he says. “Then we’ve used it on and off. And definitely in the period that was a very important to Van Cleef & Arpels, the 60s and 70s. There was a lot of revisitation of Eastern, Indian, Persian jewellery. And the idea – and it has always been the idea for this brand – is really often about colour and movement. We really had a very, very strong tradition with that, which we love to keep.”

Cartier also has a long history of using turquoise in its creations, harking back again to the Egyptian Revival era of the 1920s. This was a period that included pieces such as the Cole Porter Egyptian suite, featuring a 1926 Scarab belt buckle brooch and a 1928 Eye of Horus bracelet with diamonds and cabochon sapphires.

Turquoise also made an appearance in Bulgari’s 2023 Mediterranea high jewellery range. Creative director Lucia Silvestri told Town & Country magazine at the time, of an emerald and turquoise medallion in the collection, that it was “a mix of the ancient and the modern … That’s very Bulgari”.

Important turquoise jewellery pieces in history include Princess Margaret’s Triumph of Love tiara and Queen Margrethe of Denmark’s three sets of turquoise jewellery that she is often seen wearing, while the infamous Duchess of Windsor, Wallis Simpson – who had exceptional taste in jewellery – had a Cartier amethyst and turquoise bib. Babe Paley, the queen of Truman Capote’s “swans” – socialites he befriended and then wrote about – wore a turquoise and diamond Tiffany & Co. bib necklace designed by Jean Schlumberger to Eisenhower’s Inaugural Ball in 1953.