Van Cleef & Arpels Conjures an Enchanting New Collection of Timepieces

The same attention to detail applies to the Lady Arpels Jour Enchanté timepiece from the maison’s Extraordinary Dials collection, where a luminous sculpted fairy flutters over a field of jeweled flowers atop a turquoise marquetry sky dial with a sun of 18K yellow gold embedded with jewels. Layers of delicate plique-à-jour and faconne enamel flora give the illusion of a boundless flower bed. “These creations instill emotion in the wearer,” says Pascal Narbeburu, director of timepieces for Van Cleef & Arpels.

Since its founding in Paris in 1906, the company has drawn inspiration for its designs from the natural world, from diamond-covered orchid brooches crafted in the 1920s to midcentury gemstone daisy necklaces and now rings with mother-of-pearl blossoms and carnelian ladybugs. The latest watches, though, are more than figurative interpretations; they’re miniature dioramas that tell a story of nature.

To bring the Brise d’Été to life, Van Cleef & Arpels turned to five master craftsmen, each with a different métier, including an enameler, an engraver, and a miniature painter. The artisans were trained in its in-house atelier, where longstanding skills are improved as they are passed down from one generation to the next. The timepiece’s varying textures and opacity are created with a trio of enamel techniques: The azure petals are painted using very fine marten-hair brushes in lighter to deeper tones with vallonné enamel and set with tiny spessartite garnet pistils; the leaves are colored in champlevé enamel and surrounded by tsavorite blades of grass; and the butterflies are composed in a more transparent plique-à-jour enamel.

The nuanced color gradient of the flowers comes from layers of enamel hues, each coat secured with intense heat. “The challenge with enamel is the firing, where every step of the process demands absolute precision with time and temperature,” says Narbeburu. Even the slightest deviation can ruin a piece.

In an era when a wristwatch isn’t the only way to clock minutes and hours, these timepieces by Van Cleef & Arpels transport us to a place where one can get lost in a magical garden and time can stand still, if only for a moment.

A version of this article first appeared in print in our 2024 Collectors Issue under the headline “Poetry in Motion.” Subscribe to the magazine.