Van Cleef & Arpels Unveils New Poetic Complications at Watches & Wonders
At the 2026 Watches & Wonders exhibition, luxury jewelry and watchmaker Van Cleef & Arpels highlighted its renowned Poetic Complications collection. President Catherine Rénier emphasized the brand's commitment to blending watchmaking expertise with narrative vision to evoke emotion. The house introduced two new timepieces: the Midnight Heure d’ici & Heure d’ailleurs and the Midnight Jour Nuit Moon Phase. The former features a jumping hour mechanism and dual time zones, distinguished by an intricate amber-brown enamel dial created through a complex, multi-stage firing process. The latter offers a dual-time display with a celestial theme, showcasing the alternation of sun and moon against a starry black aventurine glass background sourced from Murano. This model includes a unique on-demand animation where the dial rotates for ten seconds, requiring precise engineering to maintain accurate moon phase tracking during movement. These releases underscore Van Cleef & Arpels' focus on poetic timekeeping rather than spectacular automata, continuing a legacy that dates back to its 1929 moon phase pocket watches and 1950s Météore secret watch.
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Van Cleef & Arpels Unveils New Poetic Complications at Watches & Wonders
At the 2026 Watches & Wonders exhibition, luxury jewelry and watchmaker Van Cleef & Arpels highlighted its renowned Poetic Complications collection. President Catherine Rénier emphasized the brand's commitment to blending watchmaking expertise with narrative vision to evoke emotion. The house introduced two new timepieces: the Midnight Heure d’ici & Heure d’ailleurs and the Midnight Jour Nuit Moon Phase. The former features a jumping hour mechanism and dual time zones, distinguished by an intricate amber-brown enamel dial created through a complex, multi-stage firing process. The latter offers a dual-time display with a celestial theme, showcasing the alternation of sun and moon against a starry black aventurine glass background sourced from Murano. This model includes a unique on-demand animation where the dial rotates for ten seconds, requiring precise engineering to maintain accurate moon phase tracking during movement. These releases underscore Van Cleef & Arpels' focus on poetic timekeeping rather than spectacular automata, continuing a legacy that dates back to its 1929 moon phase pocket watches and 1950s Météore secret watch.
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