The Art of Preserving an Icon
A good CEO sees clearly—even through the fog of market trends and fleeting passions. A few months ago, reflecting on the constant product line shake-ups that often come with a new CEO, Stéphane Waser, longtime head of Maurice Lacroix, sighed:
“It’s actually quite simple. When you have an icon, a bestseller, you don’t mess with it.”
He speaks from experience—he created the Aikon. The same holds true for watches like the Royal Oak or Reverso, which have endured for decades without losing their identity. Jean-Christophe Babin echoed the sentiment recently:
“In my view, only two true watch icons have emerged in the 21st century: Hublot’s Big Bang and the Octo Finissimo.”
Van Cleef & Arpels follows a similar path—and with similar brilliance. Like the Octo Finissimo (2014) and Aikon (2016), the original Pont des Amoureux is a relatively young icon, born in 2010. It was a stroke of creative and technical genius. The watch brought horological automatons back into the spotlight—this time through a fully feminine piece. It reintroduced poetry into watchmaking, with grace and elegance. It wove a narrative thread that, in theory, never ends: the love story of two characters. All while maintaining a sense of rarity, and therefore value, with each new version.
The Magic of the Ball
This is precisely what the Bal des Amoureux captures. From the very first glance, the piece stands out. It gives that rare feeling of being something completely new—yet instantly familiar. That’s the magic of Van Cleef & Arpels’ Amoureux. Anonymous, yet known and recognized. Faceless, and thus relatable to anyone and everyone. Rooted in a universal emotion—love—that transcends cultures.
And after 15 years of reimagining these two Lovers, we may know nothing about them—but we already know what will happen: they will move, draw closer, and kiss.
Pure magic.
Object of Desire
The Cadenas follows a different logic. It belongs to that rare category of watches inspired by an everyday object (or sometimes an animal), transformed to tell time. There are few such examples. One might think of Bvlgari’s Serpenti. Ralph Lauren’s Stirrup (based on a horse stirrup). Or Hermès’ Kelly, which also takes its cues from a padlock.
In this category, the creative challenge is fascinating—because it’s defined by the constraints of the original object. A padlock, by nature, must have an opening and a closure, sometimes even a chain. You can’t stretch the metaphor too far without breaking its meaning. So, designers must find clever ways to keep evolving the concept without repeating themselves. This alone deserves attention—it’s a far more demanding path than working with abstract shapes.
Here, Van Cleef & Arpels leans on its jewelry expertise. You could argue it’s “just another padlock—but with gemstones.” But that would be selling it short. Because, once again, the form sets strict creative limits. And the padlock is deceptively complex: multiple facets, asymmetry, curves, flat planes, slanted angles, moving and fixed parts—it’s a true jeweler’s tour de force.
It takes absolute mastery of stone-setting to embellish an object with such geometry.
A piece for connoisseurs, by connoisseurs.
