At Van Cleef & Arpels, watchmaking has always existed beyond the purely technical. Across its Poetic Complications and Extraordinary Dials collections, the Maison approaches time through emotion, storytelling and craftsmanship, transforming watches into miniature worlds shaped by movement, artistry and imagination. From celestial references and animated automatons to intricate métiers d’art, each creation is designed not simply to measure time, but to evoke wonder.
This philosophy continued at Watches & Wonders 2026, where the Maison unveiled a series of dreamlike novelties inspired by astronomy, nature and its enduring fascination with poetic storytelling. Among the highlights was the new Midnight Jour Nuit Phase de Lune, a technically complex yet visually delicate creation that reimagines the moon phase through moving discs and animated displays designed to bring the celestial cycle to life in a more immersive way.
As Director of Research and Development Watches, Rainer Bernard works closely across the Maison’s Creative Studio, Métiers d’Art teams and watchmaking departments to transform these ideas into fully realised creations. Here, he reflects on balancing innovation with emotion, the evolving role of craftsmanship within contemporary watchmaking, and why Van Cleef & Arpels continues to place storytelling at the heart of every timepiece it creates.
Van Cleef & Arpels has long explored the relationship between watchmaking, poetry and storytelling. How would you describe the Maison’s current areas of focus within watch development today?
When creating a new watch within Poetry of Time, we always start with a story from the Maison’s universe or inspiration. At the beginning, it is justan idea. The different métiers then put their expertise together, from the Creative Studio, Métiers d’Art team, to the watchmakers and technical designers. We work closely, combining all our crafts and knowledge to bring the story to life; we complement each other to harmonise the elements. Of course, there are some challenges, but it’s easier to overcome them when we work closely together from the start, like a big family.
Midnight Jour Nuit Phase de Lune
This year’s novelties feel particularly emotional and dreamlike. Was there a broader narrative or philosophy connecting the 2026 watch presentations?
For this edition of Watches & Wonders, we launched six novelties that each, in their own way, express our watchmaking philosophy, drawing on sources of inspiration dear to the Maison, such as Poetic Astronomy. Indeed, Van Cleef & Arpels has always been inspired by the spectacle of the stars in jewellery, high jewellery, and Watchmaking creations. One of the Maison’s earliest commercial ledgers mentions the sale of a moon crescent set with a sapphire and brilliants in 1906. Poetic Astronomy makes us think of the cosmos, and it is something that fascinates us because it is out of our reach.
Perlee
The new Jour Nuit watch introduces both a day-and-night display and an astronomical moon phase complication. What has drawn the Maison to revisit and evolve this poetic complication now?
For the Midnight Jour Nuit Phase de Lune, we wanted to continue the story of the Jour Nuit collection, which was born in 2008, while revisiting the moon-phase complication. The initial idea was to animate the moon while following its night-and-day cycle, rather than representing it only as a full moon with diamonds, as in the Lady and Lady Arpels Jour Nuit watches. As the moon is naturally hidden behind the earth during the daytime, and on the watch behind the shroud, we added an automaton that allows one to ask for the moon at any (day)time to have a glance at the actual moon phase.
The decor comes to life through the combined action of two rotating discs, each moving at its own pace. The night-and-day disc with the sun and the moon completes one rotation in 24 hours; the second one below describes a rotation in 24 hours, 16 minutes, and 27 seconds. It is almost imperceptible, but it transfigures the moon day after day to indicate the moon phase. To avoid any inaccuracies in the moon phase, we had to account for the changes that would occur during the animation, since the discs are performing an additional full rotation. It took us four years of research and development to bring this creation to life! Here, the technical challenge is always in service of the story, so the Maison’s timepieces remain narrative creations, evoking a unique emotion in the wearer.
Van Cleef & Arpels approaches complications very differently from many traditional watchmakers, often prioritising emotion and wonder as much as technical mastery. How do you balance innovation with storytelling?
Every creation starts with a story. Whether it is butterflies fluttering in a garden or two lovers meeting on a bridge, all the different teams involved work closely together to combine knowledge and expertise. For technical solutions, we naturally favour clever solutions over complex ones, so we are not seeking complexity for its own sake. We may bring to life various, multilayered stories with several “actors” moving in different ways, which at the same time indicate the time, combined with automatons in passage et on demand, always moving smoothly at a poetic speed: all the engineering required is driven solely by the story. This is combined with craftsmanship, at the heart of every initiative of the Maison for more than a century.
In watchmaking, we continue this tradition with a wide range of in-house expertise. Our creations feature miniature painting, gem setting, engraving, marquetry, and over 15 enamelling techniques. Choosing a specific métier d’art or its combination is a central element of the creative process, especially for Extraordinary Dials or Poetic Complications collections. Always starting with a story and an aesthetic in mind, we will choose the techniques which allow us to express it. Like letters forming words, this craftsmanship forms words which then become a poem. To create, for example, effects with light like reflection and brilliance, or visual depth, we carefully choose the perfect materials, textures, forms, colours, and sometimes transparency.
The right combination of all the elements then allows us to create, for example, a scene that evokes the feeling of an early summer morning or another specific time of day. Indeed, the need to develop innovative techniques is always a result of our imagination, willing to express the story: when we realise that the mastered technique in the Maison does not offer the possibility (yet) to create that specific aspect we are looking for, we start to search for the impossible and most of the time till we find a solution, even if it can take years!
Lady Retrouvailles Célestes
The Ludo Secret watches reinterpret one of the Maison’s most iconic jewellery signatures from 1934. How important is it for Van Cleef & Arpels to continually revisit archival designs through a contemporary lens?
The Ludo Secret watches celebrate the timeless elegance of one of the Maison’s signature designs: the Ludo bracelet, created in 1934, and inspired by Couture, a theme dear to the Maison. It represents a belt with a buckle. At this year’s Watches & Wonders, the Maison perpetuates this tradition with a new version in yellow gold and sapphires, revisiting a 1949 model. What is interesting about this watch is the sapphires: the harmony of intense blue and the contrast between them – meticulous work from the stone department, which selects each individual stone to achieve perfectly matching colours according to Van Cleef & Arpels’ demanding criteria. For the Maison, continuing to reinvent its classics is proof that a piece’s aesthetic power can carry it through time without losing its relevance.
Ludo Secret
How does Van Cleef & Arpels continue pushing the boundaries of high jewellery watchmaking while preserving its signature elegance and refinement?
Van Cleef & Arpels sees watches from a jeweller’s perspective and combines the reading of time with its jewellery and High Jewellery expertise to display the passing hours with timeless sophistication. These pieces embody the concept of jewels that tell time, dear to the Maison, where each is both a piece of jewellery or High Jewellery and a watch. I like to say that Van Cleef & Arpels’ watches are recognisable in a certain way, by their style and the way they are made. Our watches are always pieces of jewellery that tell time. This blending of jewellery, high jewellery, and high watchmaking is very important for the Maison.
By Lindsay Judge
