Van Cleef & Arpels Zip necklace-bracelet tops Phillips Geneva sale

Lot 399 sold for CHF619,600, or about $793,346, at the Hôtel President in Geneva, comfortably above its CHF260,000 to CHF480,000 estimate. That placed the piece roughly 29 percent above the top of estimate, a clear signal that collectors were willing to pay for iconic maison design as much as for materials. In a market where many jewels are judged on carat weight and stone quality alone, the Zip made the case for a different kind of value: mechanism, authorship and history.

Phillips said the 99-lot sale totaled CHF5,469,471, with 85 lots sold, equal to 86 percent sold by lot and 85 percent by value. The house also said 93 percent of signed jewels found buyers. Those figures matter because they show where demand concentrated: not simply in the flashiest stones, but in signed pieces with a recognizable hand and a documented lineage.

The Zip is one of those designs that collectors know by silhouette. Van Cleef & Arpels says the concept was invented in 1950 and realized in 1951, transforming a zipper into high jewelry that can convert from necklace to bracelet. Sotheby’s says the Zip was commissioned in 1938 by the Duchess of Windsor through Renée Puissant, Van Cleef & Arpels’ artistic director from 1926 to 1942, and notes that fewer than 10 Zip necklaces have appeared at auction in recent years. That rarity, more than any single stone, helped justify the bidding in Geneva.