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Van Cleef & Arpels advertisement, circa 1930
Florence Jay Gould was known as an emblematic character in the 1930s. As the wife of Frank Jay Gould, the son of the American railroad magnate Jay Gould, she and her husband turned the French Riviera into an exclusive hot spot for high society. She would also host a literary salon that included such famous names as Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, André Gide, Jean Cocteau, and Salvador Dalí.
She was already a devoted client of Van Cleef & Arpels when she gave Charles Arpels the idea for the Minaudière™ precious case in the late 1930s. One day, Charles Arpels was surprised to see Florence Jay Gould putting all her accessories into a white metal Lucky Strike tin. This incident would inspire him to invent the ingenious box capable of holding all the objects a lady would need for an evening out.
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