Novelties by Van Cleef & Arpels at Watches & Wonders 2024 were around mainly two themes dear to the Maison: Enchanted Nature and Poetic Astronomy.
If Watches and Wonders and the entire fine watchmaking are bubbles, then it is fair to state that the Van Cleef & Arpels’ booth at WW24 is a bubble in a bubble. By entering the VCA bubble, created this year in collaboration with Jean-Baptiste Auvray, French designer, interior architect and scenographer, visitors found themselves in a magical and extravagant fairytale. ‘We are provocateurs of emotion who place the visual and sensory experience at the heart of our work. We draw upon our mastery of materials to transform visions and ideas into concepts, spaces and products.’ – shared Jean-Baptiste Auvray his view.
Lady Arpels Brise d’Été
Part of these scene was a miraculous garden with big, lush, translucent leaves, echoing the different enamel expertise of Van Cleef & Arpels. Those, that appear on this years spring messenger, the Lady Arpels Brise d’Été watch. The 38-mm white gold, diamond-set case gives the frame to the bucolic landscape with butterflies, using mother-of-pearl, tsavorite, and spessartite garnets. The flowers and leaves are enhanced with miniature painting, plique-à-jour, champlevé, and vallonné enamel techniques. These tiny marvels take more than 40 hours of meticulous work for the artisans to create.
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Van Cleef and Arpels Lady Arpels Brise d’Été
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The white and yellow-gold butterflies rendered in plique-à-jour enamel not only tell the time, but flutter off thanks to an on-demand animation module that also breathes life into the flowers and their stems. You can activate the papillon flight by a pusher at eight o’clock. Energies required for the action are produced by the actual push, needing none from the timekeeping reserves.
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Van Cleef and Arpels Lady Arpels Brise d’Été
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Lady Jour Nuit and Lady Arpels Jour Nuit
From the enchanted greenery we look up to the sky – Lady Jour Nuit and Lady Arpels Jour Nuit are the reinterpretations of a watch introduced in 2008. The two new models are 33 and 38-mm in diameter, both in white gold cases and with interchangeable straps, and are available with a white gold bracelet paved with round diamonds.
The smaller version presents a blue aventurine glass dial, a guilloché yellow gold sun and diamond-paved moon and stars. On the 38mm model the sun is embellished with snow-set yellow sapphires above a guilloché white mother-of-pearl cap.
Powered by the self-winding mechanical Valfleurier movement featuring a 24-hour rotating disc, the dial revolves delicately throughout the day and showcases the passing of the sun and the moon.
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Van Cleef and Arpels Lady Jour Nuit
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Lady Arpels Jour Enchanté
If all the above wouldn’t be extraordinary enough, the Extraordinary Dials collection of the Maison – dedicated to merge métiers d’art with jewellery and watchmaking expertise – has a new addition as well.
The new Lady Arpels Jour Enchanté timepiece debuts with different artisan techniques like façonné enamel (a unique process to create three-dimensional forms of the enamel) to miniature engraving, or even a special gem-set in enamel method. At this technique (seen for example on the leaves above and under the fairy) the craftsman set precious stones within the plique-à-jour enamel without the addition of any other metal or other component. The stone is put in a precisely carved place in the enamel, then fired again in order to seal the precious stone floating on the enamel element.
The sky behind of the fairy is composed of three shades of turquoise, while the sun and flowers are set with spessartite garnets, colored sapphires, and diamonds.
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Van Cleef and Arpels Lady Arpels Jour Enchanté
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Van Cleef and Arpels Lady Arpels Jour Enchanté
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Photo credits: Loupiosity.com
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