The fine watchmaking industry has gathered in Geneva this week to celebrate the best new designs from some of the world’s top brands and Van Cleef & Arpels‘ new novelties are the talk of the town — and with good reason.
For the year ahead, the brand wants to recreate the sensation of childhood whereby you laid on the grass and looked up at the canopy of sky above. That sense of wonder and awe has been injected into its newest designs with dramatic (and breathtaking) results.
Undoubtedly the star of the brand’s 2018 line-up, the first release to be unveiled is the new Lady Arpels Planétarium which is a completely new creation for the brand that was designed from scratch and has been in the works for three years. The beautiful timepiece features a navy blue dial punctuated with miniature replications of the sun (made from pink gold), mercury (made from pink Mother of Pearl), Venus (crafted from enamel) and Earth (represented by a turquoise stone). These pieces rotate around the watch face in line with reality — the Earth will take 365 to fully rotate around the dial, for example.
The piece also features a diamond that represents the moon and spins around the earth, mimicking all phases of the moon’s cycle in real life including the half moon, full moon and new moon. As in reality, this cycle repeats itself every 29.5 days.
Developed in Switzerland, the design will be a numbered edition and is finished with either an alligator or full diamond bracelet.
Van Cleef & Arpels also announced the release of a new zodiac collection, titled Midnight Zodiac Lumineux, which features an impressive mechanical movement that generates light on the front of the piece to illuminate the zodiac symbol.
You can expect new additions to the brand’s Le Jardin Van Cleef & Arpels range, too, with several beautiful savoir-faire pieces that feature intricate design details like hidden dials revealed behind a petal or a ladybug, for instance. The maison has once again looked to nature for its inspiration for these new creations with beautiful results.
Discover some of the new novelties here…
{insert gallery tpl=”slide-freesize.tpl” id=”Van Cleef & Arpels’ newest watch design is (literally) out of this world” rid=”5713″ order=”a_tstamp”}
The brand also announced several key happenings across the Middle East for the year ahead including the opening of a second boutique in The Dubai Mall and the extension of its existing boutique at Mall of the Emirates.
Now, see the new watch strap detail unveiled by Panerai at SIHH 2018.
