Van Cleef Arpels Lady Arpels Planetarium detail

Van Cleef & Arpels Lady Arpels Planétarium

The Lady Arpels Planétarium by Van Cleef & Arpels does something ambitious. It reduces the vast expanses of space into a women’s watch 38 mm in diameter. To be more specific, the 149,600,000 million kilometres – which is also known as 1 AU, Astronomical Unit – separating the earth and the sun are scaled down…

Van Cleef & Arpels takes to the air in 2016

Van Cleef & Arpels have released news about one of their new watches that they will be presenting at the upcoming show SIHH, taking place in Geneva from 18 to 22 January 2016. The brand specializes in a very poetic depiction of time (their description The Poetry of Time is a registered trademark), in which…

Van Cleef & Arpels Jour Nuit Oiseaux de Paradis

This Poetic Complication piece by Van Cleef & Arpels, Lady Arpels Jour Nuit Oiseaux de Paradis, has a mechanical automatic movement that has a 24-hour module specially developed for Van Cleef & Arpels, driving the dial that features a bird-of-paradise flower and a moon in diamond. The dial rotates once every 24 hours, slowly changing…

Van Cleef & Arpels Lady Arpels Jour Nuit Coccinelles

At SIHH in January 2015, Van Cleef & Arpels presented two new Poetic Complication watches. This piece, Lady Arpels Jour Nuit Coccinelles, has a mechanical automatic movement driving the hour and minute hands, with an additional 24-hour module powering a disc lying behind the over-dial featuring four-leaved clovers crafted in champlevé enamel. The lower dial…

Van Cleef & Arpels

Company profile: In 1895, Alfred Van Cleef, son of a gemstone-cutter, met Estelle Arpels, daughter of a gemstone dealer. And the consequence was the birth of a business, Van Cleef & Arpels, run initially by Alfred Van Cleef and his father-in-law Salomon Arpels. In 1906, after Salomon’s death, Alfred was joined by Estelle’s brother Charles…

The SIHH 2015 preview watches

Not long now to SIHH, the watch fair grouping 16 brands, starting on 19 January in Geneva. It’s the first watch show of the year and so provides an indication of the latest trends. Some of the things that visitors will be wondering include the effects that the recent Swiss franc currency variation will have…

SIHH 2015 preview, Van Cleef & Arpels Cadenas

Cadenas looks very different from most Van Cleef & Arpels creations, which are often very French and poetique in their inspiration. Cadenas is, on the other hand, a bracelet-watch that is tough and chunky. Like the Zip necklace, the design was probably inspired by the Duke and Duchess of Windsor – King Edward VIII who…

10 green watches hanging on the wall

Green is the colour of jade and amethyst and so it often appears on jewellery watches. But there are a few men’s watches made in this colour, and they immediately become very distinctive items purely because probably about 90% of all watches sold are predominantly silvery. So let’s take a look at these ten green…

Which is the best dress watch?

Caars, washing machines, electric drills and so forth have to comply with certain rules and regulations before they are put onto the market. For watches, this is not the case. For some categories, such as diver’s and pilot’s watches, there are some standards, but a brand can decide whether to comply or not. The only…

The solar system on your wrist

Van Cleef & Arpels make complication watches, but the complications are always about telling a story. In the Midnight Planétarium Poetic Complication, the story is one of the most beautiful of them all: the planets revolving around the sun. I still think that this piece was one of the highlights of the two major shows…