Born in 1927 near Paris, Jean Dinh Van wanted to be a sailor. Fortunately for women, he decided, under his father's influence, to create jewelry. After studying at the Beaux-arts de Paris, he learned the trade of artisan jeweler at Cartier, and began a love affair with metal. This experience gave him a very personal vision of luxury and beauty.
In the mid-60s, tired of fashioning flowers and panthers for socialites and aristocrats, he wanted to bring jewelry to the streets. He took an interest in his era, in everything that was new: ready-to-wear by Paco Rabanne and Pierre Cardin, furniture by Knoll, advertising by Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet. As part of a group of designers, he aspires to a more modern approach and wants to free jewelry from the constraints of preciosity. His ambition is to create jewelry for everyday wear for contemporary men and women.
That's how Jean Dinh Van founded his company in 1965 on Place Gaillon, not far from Rue de la Paix. An iconoclast, he invented essential, personal, everyday jewelry. He reverses the jewellery approach, creating jewels that are more for those who wear them than for those who look at them.
