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Behind The Velvet Curtains: Van Cleef & Arpels’ Award-Winning Creations

Rainer Bernard, Head of Research and Development for Watchmaking at Van Cleef & Arpels, offers an exclusive glimpse into the craftsmanship and techniques behind the French luxury brand’s celebrated designs.
Published: January 21, 2025
Photo: Courtesy of Van Cleef & Arpels

This has been a very good year for Van Cleef & Arpels’ horology universe. Last November, three of the Maison’s timepieces took top prizes in the women’s categories at the 24th Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG)—the annual competition that awards the year’s best timepieces for their craftsmanship, artistry, and technical innovations. Van Cleef & Arpels was the only Maison to have three coveted awards to its name. (Chopard came in second with two prizes.)

Related article: In Conversation With Van Cleef & Arpels President and CEO Nicolas Bos

Van Cleef & Arpels’ Lady Arpels Jour Nuit watch took home the Ladies Watch Prize at this year’s Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève. Photo: Courtesy of Van Cleef & Arpels

The Lady Arpels Jour Nuit watch took home the Ladies Watch Prize for its poetic rendition of celestial movements. Though the original was first unveiled in 2008, this new 33mm edition (which resulted from three years of development) sees a diamond-paved moon chasing a guilloché gold sun on a 24-hour rotating aventurine glass disc. This is then partially hidden by a mother-of-pearl portion, painted blue, with a guilloché effect.

Related article: Girl Chronographs: The Best Timepieces Below 40mm

The stemmed flowers of the Lady Arpels Brise d’Été watch sway upon activation as butterflies circle the dial. Photo: Courtesy of Van Cleef & Arpels.

The Lady Arpels Brise d’Eté took top honours in the Ladies’ Complication Watch Prize for the remarkable mechanical creativity and complexity found within its 38mm case. Set against a matte mother-of-pearl dial are two time-telling plique-à-jour enamel butterflies in an idyllic garden of vallonné enamel flowers and gem-set leaves. Press a button at the watch’s side and the butterflies flit around the the periphery of the dial as the flowers sway to a gentle breeze.

Related article: Jaeger-LeCoultre’s Made Of Makers Celebrates Innovation And Artistry

Turquoises of three different colours make up the sky of the gem-encrusted sun. Photo: Courtesy of Van Cleef & Arpels.

Then, there’s the Lady Arpels Jour Enchanté. Awarded the Artistic Crafts Watch Prize for its exceptional mastery of enamelling, this 41mm watch showcases a mesmerising three-dimensional scene: Its cornucopia of richly hued elements include a fairy flitting across a garden with diamond dew-droped plique-à-jour enamel leaves and sculpted enamel flowers. Two new and patent-pending enamelling techniques were developed in order to bring this scene to life, with two years going into their development and 180 hours required to assemble the dial alone

Rainer Bernard. Photo: Courtesy of Van Cleef & Arpels

There is an art to making onerous tasks look seemingly effortless and Van Cleef & Arpels has proved time and again to be the master of its métiers. We speak with Rainer Bernard, Van Cleef & Arpels’ Head of Research And Development for Watchmaking, about the techniques that make the Maison’s magical narrative possible.

The hand-sculpted fairy from the Lady Arpels Jour Enchanté watch with plique-à-jour enamel wings. Photo: Courtesy of Van Cleef & Arpels.

Congratulations on the wins! Can you tell us the vision behind the watches?

The Metier d’art is always in the centre [of our creations] but last year, we came out with two enamelling innovations. If you take normal enamel out of the oven, it is very hard and brittle; you cannot sculpt it because there are so many tensions that cause it to break when you put pressure on it. With our invented process, you take away the tensions so that you can sculpt it. In the Lady Arpels Jour Enchanté watch, there are flowers made out of enamel in 3D.

The second invention is where we set diamonds into plique-à-jour enamel by using the same process that removes the enamel’s tensions. We drill a hole [in the enamel] and we place the diamond halfway in before we put it back into the oven.

Then, we heat it according a very specific protocol so that the diamond gets a little bit bigger and pushes into the enamel (which is a little bit malleable at this stage) and the diamond is perfectly sent. We’ve mastered these two innovations and have two patents pending for them.

Photo: Courtesy of Van Cleef & Arpels

Why was there a need to invent these techniques?

We always have new ideas that we want to realise, but we are limited by what we can do. So we invest enormously in research so that we have more possibilities to create what we want to create. The research is for us to have a means to express the poetry of time; it’s a tool that is driven by artistic design.

We wanted to have dewdrops on a plique-à-jour leaf—of course we’re not going to glue the diamonds on! So we had to come up with a new technique. To invent something new in such an old, ancient artform is really exciting for us.

Can you tell us more about this process? And did you do anything to the enamel itself?

It’s the same enamel but we heat it up and cool it down using a very slow process. It takes over 10 hours to heat up in a very specific oven that we had to invent because the ovens that exist are not able to do this. But to know how long and at what temperature, and how to make an oven that can do this? It took us two years to get it right.

The 3D enamel flowers of the Lady Arpels Jour Enchanté watch are the results of a new, invented technique. Photo: Courtesy of Van Cleef & Arpels.

You've been with the Maison for 13 years now. What still excites you about the job?

I’m passionate about the fact that we interpret time differently; I like that we create the poetry of time. Poetry is words, said or written, that evoke emotions— and we try to do that through our animations. As an engineer, I appreciate that we do awesome engineering that is always driven by the story; the technique is always hidden, and it’s very difficult to hide it completely so that you don’t see it anymore.

It needs a specific signature of our development department, but together with the creative team, we always find solutions to bring the story to life.

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