Jacques Arpels (1914–2008) was a son of Julien Arpels and a nephew of Estelle Arpels and Alfred Van Cleef, whose marriage gave Van Cleef & Arpels its name. He became a partner in the house in 1937, alongside his brothers Claude and Pierre and his cousin Renée Puissant, and after the Second World War the three brothers ran the business as its second family generation. Claude led the American business, and Jacques, based in Paris, became chief executive.
His years at the head of the house were those of its great special orders. Sita Devi, the Maharani of Baroda, who owned some 300 jewels, had pieces made under his direction, including a necklace set with more than 220 carats of emeralds from her own collection; the house dates her orders to around 1950. The Zip necklace, patented as a jewellery zipper in 1938, was made for the first time in 1950 and could be worn as a bracelet. In 1954 the house opened la boutique at 22 place Vendôme, with lighter and more affordable pieces such as its animal clips. In the 1960s it made jewels for Barbara Hutton and Princess Grace of Monaco, and the coronation crown of Empress Farah Pahlavi of Iran in 1967.
He is associated above all with luck. "To be lucky, you have to believe in luck," he liked to say, and he enjoyed picking four-leaf clovers to give away with the poem "Don't Quit." The house cites that spirit for the Alhambra, whose four-leaf clover motif first appeared on a long yellow gold necklace in 1968 and became its best-known collection.
Sources are thin on his own life and on when he stepped back; Casadi has not found a reliable obituary. The direct attribution of the Alhambra design to him comes from secondary sources; the house links the collection to his saying rather than naming him as designer.