For the 2025 edition of Watches and Wonders, the Maison pays tribute to Paris, the city where it was born.
This becomes the setting for precious encounters within the Pont des Amoureux collection, which welcomes new chromatic harmonies and a new chapter: the Lady Arpels Bal des Amoureux Automate watch. At the crossroads of artistic crafts and the technical expertise of the Van Cleef & Arpels Watchmaking Ateliers in Geneva, this watch tells the story of a tender rendezvous.
Expressing the Maison’s vision of Temps Poétique, two new Objets Extraordinaires invite you to contemplate the passage of time to the rhythm of Cupid’s wings with the Automate Naissance de l’Amour or the enchanting dance of the stars with the Automate Planétarium.
Finally, the two new Haute Joaillerie watches Cadenas and Ruban Mystérieux celebrate the Maison’s tradition of timepiece jewellery.
The Lady Arpels Bal des Amoureux Automate watch tells the story of the young couple’s rendezvous in a new setting that recreates the atmosphere and setting of a guinguette, a typical tavern and dance hall in the suburbs and surrounding areas of Paris that was popular in the 19th century. Thanks to an automaton movement, the protagonists approach each other and exchange a kiss at midday and midnight.
This romantic scene can be played out on request by pressing a button on the watch case. The hours and minutes are indicated by two stars, which move thanks to a double retrograde system, a true distinctive element of this collection. Inside the dial, the depth effects are articulated on five levels. The harmony of the shades of the grisaille and colored grisaille enamel recalls the chiaroscuro of a starlit night.
The garlands of lights and the white gold pavé – hand-finished by the Maison’s artisans – instead recall the streets of Paris. The back of the case echoes the scene on the dial thanks to the technique of enamel decalcomania on sapphire crystal and the engraving depicting the dancing couple.
The magic created by the Lady Arpels Bal des Amoureux Automate watch is the result of the meticulous work of the expert watchmakers at Van Cleef & Arpels in Geneva. After four years of research and development, they have created an automaton movement that is new to the Maison’s collections. When the animation is activated, the scene comes to life: the characters approach, lean towards each other, while their arms, previously joined, are lowered realistically thanks to a movement articulated in three stages. The experts paid particular attention to the fluidity of the gestures of the two figures. The mechanism, designed in such a small size that it can be housed inside a thin case, has been cleverly hidden beneath the decoration of the dial.
The main element of the dial of the Lady Arpels Bal des Amoureux Automate watch, grisaille enamel is a craft requiring mastery and patience. Developed in France in the 16th century, this rigorous technique reproduces the chiaroscuro of a Parisian night.
Since its foundation in 1906, Van Cleef & Arpels has stood out for the creation of precious objects that inspire wonder and amazement. These decorative elements or beauty accessories, such as powder compacts or perfume bottles, reveal the spirit of the times and the mastery of the Maison. In keeping with this tradition, each automaton offers a new vision of the passing of the hours. The minutes seem to stop when an apparition reveals itself at the centre of a bouquet, while the years contract to allow the stars to rotate in a setting that evokes the mystery of the cosmos. Remarkable for their combination of materials, these creations foster a dialogue at the crossroads of artistic mechanics, Haute Joaillerie and artistic crafts. They express all of Van Cleef & Arpels’ expertise, its enchanted universe and its commitment to preserving and perpetuating this ancestral savoir-faire.
The Automate Naissance de l’Amour expands the collection introduced by Van Cleef & Arpels in 2022 with Rêveries de Berylline and enhanced, in 2023 and 2024, with Éveil du Cyclamen and Bouton d’Or. Approximately thirty centimetres high, this object depicts the mythological character of Cupid within a composition expressing the tenderness of feelings. In white gold, pink gold, yellow gold and diamonds, it emerges from a basket of feathers lacquered in different shades of colour. The complex mechanism that animates the creation was designed in collaboration with François Junod’s atelier in Sainte-Croix, Switzerland. The figure surmounts a Greek column in carved rose gold and a composition of clouds in white gold, diamonds and pink sapphires in three different shades. It rises gracefully, turns on itself, flapping its plique-à-jour enamel wings for a few moments before returning to its hiding place. The animation is accompanied by the melody of a music box. The base of the automaton is entirely carved from a stone rich in nuances with golden reflections: the iron eye. A cup in fossil palm wood – a gemstone never seen before in the Maison’s creations – holds the basket of feathers. These materials have been carefully selected by the Maison’s experts, then cut and polished to enhance their character and uniqueness. A rotating graduated ring indicates the time thanks to two feathers in lacquer and diamonds, held by a bow entirely of diamonds.
Fascinated by the spectacle of the stars and the celestial vault, the Maison on Place Vendôme pays homage to them with the universe of Astronomie Poétique. Since 2014 he has been dedicated to the scale reduction of 18th century planetariums – models depicting the Sun, the Moon and the planets close to the Earth – to adapt to the size of the wrist. Thus was born the Planétarium collection, which includes complex timepieces and large-scale automatons. This year, this collection welcomes a new Objet Extraordinaire, presented in a harmony of materials in luminous hues.
At the crossroads of watchmaking and fine jewellery, Van Cleef & Arpels continues to explore its creative universe with its timepiece jewellery. Its creations combine discreet reading of the time with the excellence of its jewellery expertise. While the ingenuity of invisible clasps and assembly techniques lend suppleness and elegance to the bracelets, the stones are carefully selected and matched according to the most rigorous criteria.
Among the Maison’s emblematic creations, the Cadenas watch occupies a prominent place. Presented in 1935 in the yellow gold version, it was subsequently released in different colour variations, in particular with the introduction, in December 1936, of a row of calibré-cut sapphires or rubies to highlight the upper part of the case and the back of the clasp. Starting in 1938, the diamond was introduced and, from 1943, the emerald. The creation also satisfies the taste for white jewellery, combining a pavé of brilliants with a row of baguette-cut diamonds on a platinum serpentine chain. It was later reinterpreted with a leather bracelet for everyday wear. By adopting the shape of an everyday object – the padlock – for the case of a watch, Van Cleef & Arpels revives the concept of the ready-made, formulated by Marcel Duchamp in the 1910s and further developed in the 1930s by the Surrealist movement. This creation also responded to a rule imposed at the time on high society ladies according to which they should not worry about the passage of time. For this reason, they had to consult their watches with absolute discretion. The dial facing inwards on the wrist and the appearance of a jewel allowed them to “look at the time furtively”, as an advertisement from 1936 stated.
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