Each Van Cleef & Arpels watch creation is a collective work of art. It all begins in Paris and ends in Geneva at the end of a fruitful dialog between the Creation Studio and the Van Cleef & Arpels Watchmaking Workshops where the R&D department, assembly workshops and artisans specializing in artistic crafts such as enameling, miniature painting or engraving all work together under one roof. What will be the theme of the next story? The dance of the Sun and Moon, the day star and night star that never meet, as depicted on the Lady Arpels Jour Nuit watch? Or perhaps, with the Lady Arpels Heures Florales watch, the spellbinding sight of a flower garden that transforms over time to indicate the passing hours. With this model, time becomes a resolutely poetic living tableau as the flowers bloom and close, renewing every 60 minutes the scene gracing the dial.
The latter is composed of more than 225 finely decorated elements, brought to life by a mechanical module entirely designed and developed by the Maison's watchmaking workshops. To achieve this, each petal is articulated and meticulously connected to the watch's mechanism. This extremely complex feat is further enhanced by various flower-opening sequences, creating the impression of a random mechanism. It is based on a cycle of three different sequences, enabling the flowers that bloom for example at 7pm today to be different from those that will open at the same time tomorrow. It is an ever-changing show, like a garden in perpetual transformation, yet one that does not detract from the measurement of time so dear to Van Cleef & Arpels, as the wearer can also consult the minutes displayed in a window on the side of the case.
FROM EXQUISITE SKETCH TO MECHANICAL DEVELOPMENT
The intention always stems from a sketch. A creative idea is quickly shared with the engineers and artisans within the Geneva-based Watchmaking Workshops, who have the complex task of exercising incredible technical virtuosity to meet the needs of the narrative. "This dialog is essential to inspire enchantment through the pieces we create", explains Rainer Bernard. "It involves meetings and deep discussions between two very demanding worlds. This is what makes our professions so alive and so exciting."
For Van Cleef & Arpels, mechanical mastery remains a means to an end, yet the effort expended on bringing a story to life and the corresponding innovations are essential. Developed, assembled and inspected in-house for several years now, the Poetic Complications watches are the result of three to six years of work, depending on the complexity of the design. In order to capture the nature of the wind, its fleeting caress and bucolic momentum, a new movement was developed over several years of research for the dial of the Lady Arpels Brise d'Été watch. On this timepiece, history is revealed once again through an exquisitely poetic narrative spectacle. The spectator's gaze is held by the dance of two butterflies which, at the push of a button, take flight to circle the dial before settling at the exact time, while the flowers undulate, as if swayed by a gentle summer breeze.
On another, more urban aesthetic theme, it took four years and three patents to perfect the new automaton movement powering the Lady Arpels Bal des Amoureux Automate watch. "We wanted our lovers to move as naturally as possible", says Rainer Bernard. "This required articulating them and combining two simultaneous movements — their coming together and leaning towards each other — while nonetheless giving them a certain degree of freedom to ensure the fluid nature of the animation. The challenge lay in achieving several natural gestures without compromising the mechanism's precision." On this timepiece, once the animation is activated, the two characters spring to life, moving closer together and leaning into each other, while linking arms via three articulations. "Whenever we design a mechanism, innovation is always guided by the story we want to tell", Rainer Bernard insists. "Technology serves creativity: it allows poetry to express itself."
THE FINEST ARTISTIC CRAFTS
To tell these stories, whose poetry inspires wonder, Van Cleef & Arpels uses a narrative process that intertwines mechanical expertise and artistic crafts. In the Poetic Complications collection, technique takes a back seat in a show staged by artisans specializing in enamel, miniature painting and engraving. These skills are continually refined in the Geneva workshops and meticulously selected on a case-by-case basis to highlight the narrative intentions of Van Cleef & Arpels' Creation Studio. Painting a landscape, revealing a light, sculpting characters... These age-old gestures are always applied with infinite mastery, in the service of a story.
"The pursuit of excellence is the common denominator in all our artistic crafts", says Rainer Bernard. "This translates into a great deal of attention lavished on two elements that are central to us: light and color. All our creations play with light. Polished, enameled, engraved surfaces. We can spend hours discussing the combination of textures that will produce the most beautiful shimmer. The same goes for colors. For example, it took two years of research to create the ideal shade of pink for the Lady Arpels Ballerine Enchantée Or Rose watch." This model is a perfect example of combining Van Cleef & Arpels' skills. The dial features a fine guilloché pattern covered with powder pink enamel, a delicate decoration complementing the sight of a ballerina sculpted in white gold set with diamonds emphasizing her face and waist. Providing an on-demand indication of the hours and minutes, the outline of her tutu features a subtle combination of diamonds and translucent enamel in shades of pink and blue applied using the plique-à-jour technique. The upper flounces rise and fall, acting as retrograde hands to display the hours and minutes. Champlevé, cloisonné, plique-à-jour, paillonné, grisaille... In the Van Cleef & Arpels enameling workshop, the artisans master some 15 techniques. Notably chosen to adorn the dial of the Lady Arpels Pont des Amoureux model, grisaille enameling is particularly complex.
Appearing in France in the 16th century, grisaille enameling serves to reproduce chiaroscuro effects, adding depth and contrast to the design by applying shades of enamel powder historically called "blanc de Limoges" to a dark background. This particularly meticulous process enhances the design's perspective effects and depth. This is especially true of this timepiece on which, beneath a starry sky overlooking the rooftops of Paris bathed in contrasting glimmers, two lovers meet at noon and midnight. That is all it takes to hint at their emotion and instill wonder into the heart of those fortunate enough to observe this poetic scene.
