When it comes to Watches & Wonders and its previous incarnation, the SIHH, the Van Cleef & Arpels stand has always stood out, rather like its timepieces that so consummately celebrate the brand’s tagline “The Poetry of Time”.
From the outside, it might seem like any other booth, but once you’re enticed to enter, it becomes an immersive experience like a pleasure ground for grown-ups, taking in the enchanting and the ethereal.
At this year’s fair, against a bewitching backdrop of depictions of lush vegetation and sun-filled and moonlit skies, the company paid tribute to the many métiers d’art – artistic crafts – that it is able to bring together through the timepieces in its Poetic Complications and Extraordinary Dials collections.
And while there was a nod to the artisans who make Murano aventurine glass and a tip of the hat to the lapidary craftsmen who work gemstones so finely, there was a distinct accent on the enamel art that Van Cleef & Arpels is able to carry out in its in-house enamel workshop. Plique-à-jour, champlevé, vallonné and façonné enamelling techniques were all to the fore in the brand’s latest watchmaking creations.
“Craftsmanship has lain at the heart of our every initiative for more than a century,” says Nicolas Bos, president and CEO of Van Cleef & Arpels. “It defines our jewellery and high jewellery creations, where we perfect traditional techniques while also incorporating innovations.
He continues: “We firmly believe in the uniqueness of our savoir-faire. That is why we chose to develop our own enamel workshop, which no doubt ranks among the world’s most accomplished. By improving on traditional techniques − such as guilloche and plique-à-jour enamel – we have succeeded in creating level surfaces akin to a painter’s canvas, while also instituting sculptural forms in spaces as small as a watch case.”
Accordingly, here are three outstanding releases from Watches & Wonders 2024 that showcase Van Cleef & Arpels’ enamelling prowess.
Lady Arpels Brise d’Été
The fantastic 38mm white gold Lady Arpels Brise d’Été is meant to evoke the freshness of summer mornings. In addition to indicating the time, its white and yellow gold butterflies – in translucent plique-à-jour enamel – flutter around thanks to a spring-loaded mechanism activated using a caseband pusher.
The blue flowers – whose petals are in vallonné enamel in relief, and whose pistils comprise spessartite garnet – simultaneously come to life, waving in the wind.
The delightful scene unfolds on a matte mother-of-pearl background. It is completed by green leaves in champlevé enamel – characterised by threadlike precious metal contours – blades of grass in tsavorite garnets and more plique-à-jour enamel, plus three-dimensional miniature painted stems.
The savoir-faire behind the Lady Arpels Brise d’Été is most impressive: The enamel artist uses coloured enamels made of silica powder, fine pigments and oil, applying the colour to a petal or butterfly using binocular magnification and, of course, considerable dexterity.
The enameller creates a gradient of hues using a thin marten-hair brush, with each colour applied incrementally, from lighter to deeper shades. Each hue requires its own firing step and only experienced enamellers are able to judge the length of time and exact temperature needed for this.
Of this stunning watch, Bos says: “I think the Lady Arpels Brise d’Été really chimes with this idea of poetic complications as we call them, featuring a dimension similar to that of an automaton thanks to the mechanical motion disconnected from the reading of time. I hope that's the sense which emerges, with its blend of mystery and gentle movement.”
Lady Arpels Jour Nuit
From the beauty of a summer’s day to the beauty of every day… and night: At the Geneva showpiece, Van Cleef & Arpels also unveiled a fresh interpretation of its Lady Arpels Jour Nuit, first launched 16 years ago.
The new 38mm Lady Arpels Jour Nuit in diamond-set white gold features a spectacular rotating 24-hour day-night indicator consisting of an openwork disc crafted in glittering Murano aventurine glass. The latter holds a diamond-set white gold moon and stars to depict the starry night sky, in addition to a yellow gold sun snow-set with yellow sapphires to represent the daytime.
The moon and sun emerge from and disappear behind a guilloched mother-of-pearl cover that fans out across the dial.
Meanwhile, the back sapphire crystal is decorated with an ethereal “protective fairy” using an innovative platinum enamel decal method, while the pointillism technique was deployed to create a distinctive colour gradient.
Also launched alongside this timepiece was the smaller 33mm Lady Jour Nuit with guilloched – rather than sapphire-set – sun.
Lady Arpels Jour Enchanté
The dial of Lady Arpels Jour Enchanté – a numbered, 41mm limited-edition in diamond-set white gold – is simply out of this world. It features a plethora of high-relief, voluminous decors evoking the theme of “enchanted nature”.
A graceful fairy sculpted in white gold picks flowers and spreads her wings made in sparkling, see-through plique-à-jour enamel. Behind her is a field of blooming pink flowers – with yellow-sapphire pistils – made using a revolutionary façonné enamel technique.
Façonné enamel entails pouring the material onto a stainless-steel holder, then sculpting it by whittling it to make a three-dimensional form. After low-temperature firing to remove tensions in the material, the enamel is glazed at high temperature, when its surface turns smooth and luminous.
The maison has also used a smart gem-setting technique for the leaves at the forefront of the mesmerising scene. White gold frames are filled with stained-glass-like plique-à-jour enamel which, rather incredibly, has been set with diamonds, without any metal holding the diamond.
To achieve this, the stone is positioned in an indentation carved in the enamel. The piece is then re-fired according to a precise temperature curve to seal the composition. This process generates a “floating” effect that highlights the radiance of the precious stones.
And that’s not all. In the background, against a turquoise sky, a sun gleams thanks to the sparkle of spessartite garnets, coloured sapphires and diamonds. The rays of the sun are fixed using a “lifted” setting that gives the illusion that they are suspended in the air.
In total, two years of development and 180 hours of work were required to assemble this dial that displays immense technical prowess and poetic grace in equal measure.
For more information, visit Van Cleef & Arpels' website.
