Van Cleef & Arpels maintained close ties with a prominent American socialite Florence Jay Gould, the wife of railroad magnate Frank Jay Gould. Known for her literary salons, attended by the likes of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, André Gide, Jean Cocteau and Salvador Dalí, she also provided Charles Arpels, nephew of cofounder Estelle Arpels, with inspiration for the Maison’s precious Minaudière™. Indeed, the sight of Florence Jay Gould slipping her accessories into a mundane white metal box is said to have sparked his idea for an ingenious beauty compact in which fashionable women could carry all their essentials.