Van Cleef & Arpels Revisits 20 Years of Poetic Complications

The collection began with the Lady Arpels Centenaire watch for the house’s centenary, according to its official historical timeline. The house has since developed different ways to animate stories and celestial scenes on its watch dials.

The Midnight Jour Nuit Phase de Lune combines a day-and-night display with a second complication showing the moon’s phase. Its official product description lists an automatic mechanical movement and a 42-millimetre case.

The presentation also includes Lady Arpels Jour Nuit, Midnight Planétarium and Lady Arpels Zodiaque Lumineux Piscium (Pisces). The Pisces model has an on-demand light-up animation, with diamonds, blue sapphires and enamel among its listed materials.

For Midnight Planétarium, Christiaan van der Klaauw developed a planetarium module exclusively for Van Cleef & Arpels. The watchmaker’s account dates the collaboration’s presentation to SIHH in Geneva in 2014 and identifies six planets represented around the sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.