Last month, I jumped on a plane to Seoul to attend L’ÉCOLE School of Jewellery Arts. An initiative founded and solely supported by Van Cleef & Arpels, L’ÉCOLE was conceived with the intention of peeling back the covers on the shrouded world of high and fine jewellery, illuminating and elucidating the craftsmanship and culture surrounding its creation and place in society.
Nestled within Bukchon, bordered by three palaces and a shrine, the almost Brutalist rectilinear concrete facade of Futura Seoul juts out from the quaint streets of traditional hanok houses, some of them dating back over half a millennium to the Joseon Dynasty. This aesthetic dichotomy echoes the learnings that transpire within. Marking the L’ÉCOLE School of Jewellery Art’s first nomadic campus in South Korea, the program took place from the 25th of June to the 15th of July 2026, and comprised a generous suite of courses as well as expert talks and the breathtaking ‘Garden of Emeralds’ exhibition.
Comprising 105 sessions across three weeks, the generous curriculum spanned a diverse array of classes including practical workshops on traditional jeweller’s techniques, stone cutting, lacquering, gouache painting, and creating mockups, as well as investigations into diamonds and gemstones and deep dives into the history of amulets and talismans around the world. For little future jewellers in training, there were also youth workshops on gemstones, drawing, and design aimed at children as young as six to teenagers.
In line with Van Cleef & Arpels mission to share jewellery culture with the general public, courses at L’ÉCOLE School of Jewellery Art’s nomadic campus in Seoul were accessibly priced from ₩10,000 to ₩50,000 ($10AUD to $50AUD).
I had the opportunity to partake in several courses at L’ÉCOLE School of Jewellery Art. Guided by two expert art historians, ‘The Power of Jewellery: Amulets, Talismans, and Lucky Charms’ explored the cross cultural views on talismanic charms and motifs, unpacking one of the world’s earliest forms of self expression and the beliefs surrounding them. Delivered in a participative style, I joined my fellow classmates in categorising a series of talismans and jewellery pieces into their respective regions and styles (nature, abstract, and calligraphy). We discovered that certain symbols held significance in multiple regions, like the Hand of Hamsa in the Middle East and India and Buddha in China and India; the origins of jewellery of the latter often identifiable by their material composition.
Elsewhere, we watched an artist undertake a gouache painting of a set of emerald gemstones. An indispensable part of the jewellery making process, gouache painters create a one-to-one scale painting of proposed high jewellery pieces, which goes on to serve as a guide for the master craftspeople creating it. At L’ÉCOLE School of Jewellery Art in Seoul, there were two gouache painting classes on offer; the first focusing on capturing light and shade and the second on representing colour in paintings.
As part of the cohort from Asia-Pacific invited by Van Cleef & Arpels to attend the opening of the nomadic school in Seoul, I had the opportunity to attend ‘The Diamond: A Gemological Exception’. Led by two gemologists, this two-hour course demystified the world’s most precious (and hardest!) gemstone — and, the only one to be composed of a single chemical element.
After addressing the basic considerations of the 4 Cs (cut, carat, clarity, and colour), our lecturers unpacked some of the most significant diamonds in history, including the magnificent Lesotho Legend, a 910-carat rough diamond acquired by Van Cleef & Arpels in 2018. While impressive in its magnitude—being the fifth-largest natural diamond ever mined—we learnt that it’s the cutting that really brings its beauty to life. After spending a year analysing and mapping the rough diamond out, the lapidaries at Van Cleef & Arpels cut the Lesotho Legend into 67 individual diamonds, each designed to maximise the brilliance, clarity, and radiance of the rough stone.
The learnings at L’ÉCOLE School of Jewellery Art are anchored by the ‘Garden of Emeralds’ exhibition. Curated by Olivier Segura, managing director and gemologist at L’école Asia, the exhibition is part of L’ÉCOLE’s ‘Discover the Gemstones’ series and takes visitors from geological formations of emeralds still embedded in rock and rough stones to exceptional works of art. Among the creations on display are a Hindu necklace by Van Cleef & Arpels, a tutti frutti art deco brooch by Boucheron, and geometric art deco works by Cartier.
According to Lise Macdonald, president of L’ÉCOLE School of Jewellery Arts, and Julie Clody-Medina, president of Van Cleef & Arpels, Asia Pacific, the French maison is working on bringing more educational initiatives to Oceania in the near future. If the Seoul school is any indication of what’s to come, we’ll be waiting with bated breath.
Words by T. Angel
