Van Cleef & Arpels: crafting poetry, precision and meaning into everyday life

Ever faithful to a poetic view of life, Van Cleef & Arpels infuses the art of watchmaking with dreams and emotion. The Poetic Complications collection, through the Poetry of Time—a philosophy dear to the maison—transforms the measurement of hours and minutes into enchanting moments of wonder, drawing on the maison’s signature themes—love stories, nature, astronomy, fairies and, of course, ballerinas. Each timepiece is a miniature stage where craftsmanship and inventive complications create poetic, three-dimensional scenes. From the initial creative ideas to the painstaking work of enamellers, engravers and stone-setters that make this happen, this collection celebrates technical mastery in service of storytelling and grace.

Born at 22 Place Vendôme in Paris, Van Cleef & Arpels is a high jewellery and watchmaking maison whose Poetry of Time exhibition now arrives in Hong Kong. Tatler GMT explores how it transforms watchmaking into a form of wearable theatre, where time dances vividly, and its magic is felt anew through every exquisite creation.

Lady Arpels Pont des Amoureux Aube watch (Photo: Courtesy of Van Cleef & Arpels)

Lady Arpels Pont des Amoureux watch (Photo: Courtesy of Van Cleef & Arpels)

A Maison Built on Love and Time

When a butterfly’s wings beat across a Van Cleef & Arpels dial, they do so with the precision of Swiss horology and the lyricism of French poetry. From its founding, the maison has believed that, like love, time should be celebrated—not merely measured.

The story began a decade earlier than the maison’s founding, with the 1895 marriage of Estelle Arpels and Alfred Van Cleef. Their union joined two families of Parisian jewellery merchants and inspired one of the most romantic legacies in high jewellery and watchmaking. The ampersand that binds their names has since become a symbol of creative harmony, linking technique to imagination, precision to emotion.

Since its founding in 1906, Van Cleef & Arpels has created elegant horological jewels, beginning with refined pocket watches and chatelaines. The maison’s first pendant watches appeared in 1912—discreet timepieces that combined jewellery with mechanical ingenuity. These were soon followed by whimsical pocket watches such as the Magicien Chinois of 1927—an early example of the retrograde movement that would later become a maison signature. Even then, some of the timepieces were conceived as a miniature theatre, where time itself performed.

In 2006, this philosophy took formal shape with the Poetic Complications collection, in which engineering serves storytelling. Each creation begins with an idea drawn from one of the maison’s cherished themes—love stories, Enchanting Nature, Poetic Astronomy, fairies and ballerinas—then takes shape over years of collaboration among designers, watchmakers and artisans.

Today, at the maison’s watchmaking workshops, Les Ateliers Horlogers Van Cleef & Arpels in Geneva, expert craftsmen across more than 20 arts unite to give form to this vision. From enamel and engraving to gem-setting, complication development and assembly, every element is guided by one belief: that time is not a constraint but a canvas—an ever-moving stage for beauty, emotion and wonder.

Lady Arpels Pont des Amoureux Clair de Lune watch (Photo: Courtesy of Van Cleef & Arpels)

Love Stories— The Reunion

Love is one of Van Cleef & Arpels’ most enduring muses. And since its founding, the maison has spent more than a century crafting emotion into form.

In 2010, the maison immortalised timeless love and devotion with the Lady Arpels Pont des Amoureux watch. On its miniature Parisian bridge, two lovers walk towards each other, meeting for a kiss at noon and midnight, with an embrace brought to life by a double retrograde movement. Time seems to stand still for three minutes before the lovers separate to indicate the hours and minutes anew. This retrograde mechanism moves the hour and minute hands in graceful arcs that travel forward before springing back to their starting positions, transforming the passage of time into a tender ballet on the dial.

In 2025, Van Cleef & Arpels unveiled four new high jewellery interpretations of the watch: the Pont des Amoureux Journée collection in Aube, Matinée, Soirée and Clair de Lune, each depicting a distinct moment of the day through the 16th-century grisaille enamel originated in France. Presented in 38mm Lady Arpels cases with snow-set sides and a graduated blue and pink sapphire-studded bracelet, these timepieces feature lovers poised on sculpted gold bridges. The story continues on the open caseback, where an exquisite scene is brought to life through an enamel decal on sapphire glass, enhanced by intricate gold engraving and a decorated oscillating weight.

Echoing the narrative initiated with the Lady Arpels Pont des Amoureux watch, Van Cleef & Arpels introduces a new rendezvous with the Lady Arpels Bal des Amoureux Automate watch. This timepiece sets the scene for the couple’s tryst in an evocative new décor inspired by the guinguettes—Paris’s lively open-air dance cafés popular in the 19th century. A new, patented automaton movement, born of four years of dedicated research and development, brings the lovers closer together for a kiss at noon and midnight. This tender scene can also be summoned on demand by pressing a button on the watch case. This delicate animation showcases fluid, natural gestures, including linked arms that lower realistically thanks to three articulations, creating a graceful and poetic performance. The dial masterfully combines two grisaille enamel techniques, requiring a dozen kiln firings to achieve a depth and chiaroscuro reminiscent of a starlit Parisian night. The hours and minutes are indicated by two golden stars following a double retrograde mechanism, a signature element of the collection. The setting is exquisitely detailed with festive lanterns and a hand-finished cobblestone courtyard crafted in white gold. Across these creations, Van Cleef & Arpels reaffirms that its greatest complication is emotion and the most important moment is the instant when love makes time stand still.

Lady Arpels Brise d’Été watch (Photo: Courtesy of Van Cleef & Arpels)

Lady Arpels Heures Florales watch (Photo: Courtesy of Van Cleef & Arpels)

Enchanting Nature— Capturing the Ephemeral

For Van Cleef & Arpels, nature is more than inspiration—it is a living measure of time. Within the Poetic Complications collection, the maison transforms the rhythms of the natural world into mechanical poetry, where the passing of each hour is revealed by a petal or wing.

The Lady Arpels Heures Florales watch reinterprets the “flower clock” conceived by 18th-century scientist Carl Linnaeus. Presented in a 38mm white gold case set with diamonds, its white mother of pearl dial becomes a garden in bloom. Twelve sculpted flowers are fashioned in white and yellow gold, set with yellow and white diamonds, and enhanced with a miniature painting. Time is read by counting the number of open flowers on the dial.

To capture nature’s inherent unpredictability, the maison designed three distinct flower-opening sequences, ensuring varied combinations. Additionally, the flowers open with gentle immediacy and close at a more lingering pace—further enhancing the organic, lifelike quality of the display. Boasting up to 166 moving parts and four years of dedicated research and development, this masterpiece brilliantly recreates the unexpected beauty of nature. Each numbered edition is accompanied by interchangeable alligator straps and a diamond-set pin buckle.

If the Heures Florales creations capture the gentle rhythm of blossoms, the Lady Arpels Brise d’Été watch evokes the freshness of a summer breeze, with flowers that sway and butterflies that flutter gently, bringing the dial to life in a captivating dance of nature. The technical challenge was to capture the essence of a gentle breeze, recreating inside the watch the delicate sway and subtle movement of wind as it stirs the flowers. Natural movement is irregular, organic, alive; mechanical movements are precise, regular, predictable. How do you reconcile these opposing qualities? Rainer Bernard, director of watchmaking research and development at Van Cleef & Arpels, explains: “For the Lady Arpels Brise d’Été watch, we dedicated four years to capturing the delicate, natural sway of flowers in a summer breeze. We rely on the creativity of every designer, engineer, craftsman and watchmaker to bring our pieces to life, without compromise on excellence.”

Encased in a 38mm white gold case with a diamond-set bezel, the white mother of pearl dial bursts with life as butterflies flutter above, resting on invisible sapphire glass. Crafted in gold and adorned with plique-à-jour, champlevé, and miniature enamel painting, every element seems to breathe with motion. Powered by a selfwinding movement showcasing an on-demand animation, the butterflies indicate the time—placed diametrically opposite to each other on the sapphire glass—one butterfly traces a 12-hour path across the dial and completes the journey, then the other takes over for the next 12 hours—while the delicate flowers remain static. On demand, the wearer can activate an animation that gently stirs the flowers and sets the butterflies fluttering.

In these creations, time is not counted but felt—measured in the opening of a flower or the flutter of a wing. It is here, in the dialogue between artistry and mechanism, that Van Cleef & Arpels captures the fleeting beauty of the natural world, where the hours tick by in quiet accord with nature’s timeless rhythm.

Savoir-faire of the Lady Arpels Jour Nuit watch (Photo: Courtesy of Van Cleef & Arpels)

Lady Jour Nuit watch (Photo: Courtesy of Van Cleef & Arpels)

Poetic Astronomy— Cosmos on the Wrist

For Van Cleef & Arpels, time can also be a celestial performance. The sky changes colours, the sun and moon trade places, and the maison captures that eternal motion within the poetic architecture of its watches.

The Lady Jour Nuit creation distils this cosmic ballet into a remarkably refined timepiece. In a 33mm white gold case, its aventurine glass dial, crafted in Murano, Italy, shimmers like the midnight sky. A guilloché, blue-painted mother of pearl cap veils a composition of stars in white gold and diamonds. The dial captures the vastness of the cosmos in miniature, where the sun and moon revolve endlessly around each other, destined never to meet. This perpetual motion is driven by a rotating 24-hour disc, marking the passage of time amid a backdrop of stars. Crafted in guilloché yellow gold, the sun lights the daylight hours, while a diamond-set white gold moon watches silently over the night sky. The watch is offered as a numbered edition, with interchangeable blue alligator straps and a diamond-set pin buckle.

Its counterpart the Lady Arpels Jour Nuit watch expands this vision to 38mm. A yellow gold sun adorned with yellow sapphires rises and sets over an aventurine glass sky, before giving way to a diamond moon. The white gold case and diamond-paved bezel frame this moving panorama, powered by the same self-winding 24-hour movement.

Expanding the celestial narrative further, the Lady Arpels Planétarium watch shifts from earthbound observation to orbital perspective. Where the Lady and Lady Arpels Jour Nuit watches capture the sun and moon’s eternal chase across our sky, the Lady Arpels Planétarium watch invites the wearer into the mechanics of the solar system itself. In a 38mm white gold case set with diamonds, an aventurine dial once again evokes the depths of space, but here the cosmos is populated by planets in motion. A rose gold sun anchors the composition as Mercury (pink mother-of-pearl), Venus (green enamel), and Earth (turquoise) trace their authentic orbital paths, the latter accompanied by a diamond moon.

Beyond the wrist, Van Cleef & Arpels extends its fascination with the cosmos through the Planétarium automaton, from the Extraordinary Objects collection—the maison’s famed one-off creations—that reproduces the dance of the solar system in real time. Beneath the custom-blown globe of the automaton, a poetic scene unfolds: a shooting star crafted from gold, diamonds and the maison’s signature Mystery Set rubies emerges from a hatch, sweeping across a 24-hour dial to mark the hours and minutes. The base hosts an array of aligned dials including hours and minutes, day and night and a perpetual calendar showing day, month and year, alongside a power reserve indicator. The automaton’s 15-bell chime is visible through a door, adding to its refined charm.

Fifteen concentric discs of lapis lazuli inlaid with stars in rose and white gold and closed-set diamonds form the stage for cosmic depth.

Lady Féerie Or Rose watch (Photo: Courtesy of Van Cleef & Arpels)

Lady Arpels Ballerine Enchantée watch (Photo: Courtesy of Van Cleef & Arpels)

Ballerinas and Fairies—Figures of Grace

They first appeared in the 1940s as tiny messengers of hope—jewelled ballerinas and fairies, spun from gold and diamonds. Even then, Van Cleef & Arpels understood that its creations could represent grace as resistance and lightness as strength. Over the decades, these ethereal figures have leapt from brooches to dials, continuing the promise that these feminine figures can be benevolent muses watching over the passage of time.

The idea of time as an enchanting spectacle runs through these figures too. Celebrated for embodying the grace and refinement that Van Cleef & Arpels holds dear, the world of ballet inspires the Lady Arpels Ballerine Enchantée creation. In this watch, the stage is a 40mm white gold case, its diamond bezel framing a ballerina poised mid-pirouette. At a touch, her tutu unfurls: the upper section in plique-à-jour enamel rises to indicate the retrograde hours and minutes, while the lower section—set with diamonds, sapphires and champlevé—remains stationary before it all folds gracefully once more. Beneath her lies a selfwinding movement with a double-retrograde, on-demand animation to reveal the hours and minutes.

The Lady Féerie watch captures a moment of serene stillness, embodied by a sculpted fairy resting on clouds. Inspired by a protective muse and symbol of femininity, the fairy’s sapphire and diamond dress, combined with turquoise plique-à-jour enamel wings, reflect the nuances of a starry night. Poised on a cloud, she points to the passing minutes through a retrograde movement, while the moon features the jumping hours mechanism through a mother-of-pearl aperture. Her wings, delicately crafted with grisaille on plique-à-jour, shimmer softly as her magic wand traces the retrograde minutes, revealing the magic of time through a selfwinding mechanical movement.

The Lady Féerie Or Rose version of this watch, launched in 2023, warms the scene with a white and rose gold fairy adorned in pink sapphires and diamonds. Her wings glow against a mauve strap, their vivid gradation achieved through opaque white enamel layered over plique-à-jour—a softly illuminated tableau depicting a fairy at work in the rose gold glow of dusk.

Miniature painting on the Lady Arpels Heures Florales watch (Photo: Courtesy of Van Cleef & Arpels)

Grisaille enamelling of the Lady Arpels Pont des Amoureux watch (Photo: Courtesy of Van Cleef & Arpels)

Lady Arpels Heures Florales watch movement (Photo: Courtesy of Van Cleef & Arpels)

The Dialogue Between Art and Engineering

What distinguishes Van Cleef & Arpels is the seamless exchange between art and science—a conversation that begins with a story and ends in motion. “The artistic aspect is central to all our projects,” says Bernard. “Each Poetic Complications creation is a collaboration between the studio, the technical experts in our watchmaking workshops, the métiers d’art and high jewellery artisans.” This dedication to innovation and utmost regard for skilled craftsmanship was notably recognised with the Innovation Prize awarded to the Lady Arpels Heures Florales Cerisier watch at the 2022 Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG).

At Van Cleef & Arpels, watchmaking begins not with function but with stories. The narrative dictates the mechanism; the mechanism refines the design. Over years of development, the maison’s artisans balance the two until story and precision become one. Every complication assembled in the Geneva workshops undergoes hundreds of hours of adjustment by hand and testing before casing—proof that engineering and emotion do indeed belong together.

A Singular Vision

At Van Cleef & Arpels, every mechanism exists to serve a story—to translate emotion into motion. At the Geneva Watchmaking Workshops, engineers, designers and artisans work in concert, their disciplines converging on a single aim: to make wonder measurable.

The industry has taken notice. Since 2005, the maison has received 15 GPHG awards, eight of which have been received by the maison’s Poetic Complications creations. At the 2024 ceremony alone, the Lady Jour Nuit watch earned the Ladies’ Watch Prize, the Lady Arpels Brise d’Été timepiece received the Ladies’ Complication Prize, and the Lady Arpels Jour Enchanté creation was given a distinction for métiers d’art—three honours that together reflect Van Cleef & Arpels’ mastery of engineering, design and artistry.

These accolades highlight the innovative spirit and technical excellence the maison brings to each creation, underpinned by its commitment to storytelling through invention, as illustrated by the three patents filed for the Lady Arpels Bal des Amoureux Automate and two for Lady Arpels Heures Florales movements. Patenting is not an objective, it is the result of a singular approach to watchmaking. “Filing patents is never an end in itself,” Bernard says. “Each invention begins with a story that demands to be told.”

This approach has yielded mechanisms unseen elsewhere: the 12-trigger system that makes flowers bloom one by one; the time display sequencer in Lady Arpels Heures Florales timepieces that opens flowers in three different sequences to evoke nature’s unpredictability; and in Brise d’Été, butterflies that take flight by means of an on-demand automaton movement. These feats of engineering are conceived not only for precision but to preserve the illusion of life and make time feel truly alive.

Almost two decades after the launch of the Poetic Complications collection, Van Cleef & Arpels continues to refine a form of horology. Here, invention is not measured in frequency or reserve, but in the quiet astonishment that follows when technology disappears and emotion remains.

Planétarium automaton (Photo: Courtesy of Van Cleef & Arpels)

Earth made of green jasper and dual-tone sapphires (Photo: Courtesy of Van Cleef & Arpels)

Jupiter made of red jasper and a rim of gold (Photo: Courtesy of Van Cleef & Arpels)

Setting gemstones on the shooting star (Photo: Courtesy of Van Cleef & Arpels)

The Poetry of Time in Hong Kong

The essence of that vision can be witnessed at the Poetry of Time exhibition, which opened in Hong Kong in January. Conceived as an immersive journey, the exhibition invites visitors to dive deep into the maison’s watchmaking expertise and métiers d’art, while tracing two decades of narrative watchmaking.

The showcase brings together not only watches but also other emblematic creations under one roof—each revealing how mechanics, art and imagination intertwine. For the first time in Hong Kong, the Planétarium automaton will also be exhibited, its gem-set sun and orbiting planets turning in real astronomical rhythm.

Interactive displays will unveil the intricate architecture behind the dials: the flower-opening module, the retrograde lovers’ dance and the planetary gear train calibrated to celestial periods, for instance. Live demonstrations of the maison’s unique métiers d’art will allow visitors to marvel at the savoir-faire that shows the patience and precision each piece requires—the slow choreography that transforms raw material into wonder.

As planets revolve and flowers bloom, the exhibition offers more than spectacle; it embodies the Van Cleef & Arpels’ belief that time, when shaped by human hands, is still astonishing—a fitting précis for a journey that began with a single story and became an entire universe.