Van Cleef & Arpels’ Poetic Complications Lady Arpels is once again the canvas on which something technical meets something which is quite the opposite, combining the brand’s distinctive ‘poetry of time’ as applied to nature, with an on-demand animated feature.

Taking four years to develop, the new Brise d’Été (‘summer breeze’) features a dial which shows part of a garden, with wite and yellow-gold butterflies and corolla flowers. The dial is mother-of-pearl, onto which there is a miniature painting to provide the background for the flowers and butterflies.

The butterflies are in plique-à-jour enamel and on sapphire glass, acting both as time markers on the retrograde and the moving part of the on-demand automata, the butterflies moving between the flowers once the animation is activated.

The Lady Arpels Brise d’Été comes in a 38mm white gold case, with a diamond bezel. Materially, the watch has a mother-of-pearl dial, and tsavorite and spessartite garnets (pistils). Enamelling ranges from plique-à-jour (blades of grass) and champlevé (leaves), to vallonné (corolla flowers).

The on-demand function comes courtesy of a module that has been integrated into an automatic movement.

Part of their ‘Enchanted Nature’ collection, there’s no-one else who consistently puts out this style of whimsy in a watch with a mechanical movement. Whether or not they might be to one’s personal taste, even those who would not wear it acknowledge Van Cleef & Arpels having carved out this rather special watchmaking niche for themselves.

Numbered but not limited in production, the Van Cleef & Arpels Lady Arpels Brise d’Été will be officially launched in October 2024.

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