LADY ARPELS BRISE D’ÉTÉ

Yannick — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 04:10:00 +0000

EFFUSIVE ZEPHYR

In keeping with the delicate poetry of its timepieces, the Parisian company breathes a light summer zephyr out into the blooming garden and the butterflies on the dial of one of its timepieces.

Reawakening a childhood memory, of a walk in a clearing, bare feet sunk in the mossy green carpet, eyes riveted to the sky, capturing it as one would with a camera and then transcribing it, with unprecedented delicacy, onto the face of a watch. Van Cleef & Arpels doesn’t just create timepieces: it keeps hold of time, infusing it with the poetry of a moment to be preserved like a sacred treasure, a moment borrowed from nature like the light breath of a zephyr inviting itself into a garden to make tall grasses quiver, wild flowers dance and butterflies twirl. The exceptional Lady Arpels Brise d’Été bears witness to the beauty of a landscape in motion.

To create this marvelous rural tableau, the Parisian company drew on the talent of the craftsmen and women who work in its Geneva workshops, combining different enameling techniques – plique-à-jour, vallonné and champlevé – with miniature painting and gem-setting, which, in addition to rich hues, confer translucency, brilliance and relief for a striking realism. Two lepidopterans, with blue or yellow wings, follow a graduated arc to indicate the hours. A simple press on the lever located at 8 o’clock on the 38mm-diameter white gold case middle stimulates them to perform a circular movement, while the blue flowers undulate in an imaginary wind. This spectacular animation is made possible by an automaton module grafted onto the self-winding movement responsible for setting the rhythm of the time display.

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LADY FÉERIE

Yannick — Wed, 17 May 2023 04:48:00 +0000

A WONDERFUL TIME

True to its reputation as a magician who harmoniously combines time and poetry, the Parisian maison is offering a new version of its graceful enchantress in shades of the setting sun.

In the 1940s, Van Cleef & Arpels called on fairies, those little imaginary beings endowed with magical powers and graceful looks that scare away the wizards of everyday life, offering a romantic vision of life. This desire to embellish time with the benevolent presence of enchantresses sublimated by the art of craftsmanship has been used by the Parisian maison in watches that are part of the Complications Poétiques® collection, to which the Lady Féerie belongs. Presented a few years ago, it is back with new colors that evoke the shades of the sky as the sun slowly fades into night.

On the dial, which is covered in a twilight gradation of mauves, with an origami-like pleated appearance and punctuated with precious stars, a cloud of mother-of-pearl trimmed in gold lets the time display radiate like the sun offering its last rays. Covererd with a dress of diamonds, pink sapphires and miniature paint, with delicate wings made of gems, pink plique-à-jour enamel and opaque enamel, the diamond-faced fairy extends the tip of her magic wand towards the retrograde minute scale placed along the right-hand side of the flange, from 1 o’clock to 5 o’clock, and graduated in tens, from 0 to 60. These time indications are driven by an automatic movement completed by a special ValFleurier module and wound by an oscillating weight bearing the engraving of a full moon surrounded by stars to deliver an power reserve of approximately 36 hours. This beating heart is housed in a pink gold case measuring 35mm in diameter with diamond-covered lugs, bezel, case middle and crown.