Cover Van Cleef & Arpels Midnight Jour Nuit Phase de Lune watch in 42mm white gold
Van Cleef & Arpels Midnight Jour Nuit Phase de Lune watch in 42mm white gold
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Four years in the making, Van Cleef & Arpels unveils the remarkable material and mechanical complexity behind the serene celestial display of the new Midnight Jour Nuit Phase de Lune
It takes some six weeks for the inky night sky of Van Cleef & Arpels’s new Midnight Jour Nuit Phase de Lune watch to reveal itself. Once the molten black Murano aventurine glass begins its controlled descent in temperature, there is little to do but wait. Within it, pure copper crystals gradually form, creating the bronze-tinted shimmer that gives the dial its unusual depth.
This lengthy transformation is an apt metaphor for the Poetic Complications watch itself: things are not as simple as they appear. At first glance, the 42mm white gold timepiece is serene. A guilloché gold sun and white mother-of-pearl moon traverse across a dark starry sky, appearing and disappearing behind a guilloché mother-of-pearl horizon painted in a gradient from black to white. Yet behind this celestial scene lie four years of development—and a succession of challenges that had to be solved before the heavens could move as intended.
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Above Van Cleef & Arpels Midnight Jour Nuit Phase de Lune watch in 42mm white gold
Van Cleef & Arpels Midnight Jour Nuit Phase de Lune watch in 42mm white gold
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Unveiled at Watches and Wonders Geneva 2026, the Midnight Jour Nuit Phase de Lune extends the Jour Nuit collection, launched in 2008 and revisited in 2024. This time, the familiar pursuit of sun and moon is joined by an astronomical complication showing the moon’s current phase—a function that first appeared in the maison’s watchmaking as early as 1929.
Here, the effect is achieved through two overlapping rotating discs, each moving at its own pace. The first completes one rotation every 24 hours, carrying the sun and moon through their daily cycle. Beneath it, a second turns every 24 hours, 16 minutes and 27 seconds; together, their relative movement recreates the moon’s 29.5-day cycle.
Even when the moon is concealed behind the horizon during the day, its current phase can be summoned at the press of a button. The dial then performs a full 360-degree rotation over approximately ten seconds before returning to the correct position. The interaction reflects a growing dialogue between Van Cleef & Arpels’s wristwatches and its larger-scale automata: rather than simply observing the scene, the wearer can set it into motion.
Above Assembling the caseback of the Van Cleef & Arpels Midnight Jour Nuit Phase de Lune, which depicts the cosmos as seen from the moon
Assembling the caseback of the Van Cleef & Arpels Midnight Jour Nuit Phase de Lune, which depicts the cosmos as seen from the moon
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Making that simple gesture possible was anything but straightforward. The weight of the two discs created an early obstacle: the initial movement design did not work as intended. With the visible elements already established in aventurine glass, gold and mother-of-pearl, there was little scope to lighten the composition. Titanium proved too heavy. After further research, the team found a special aluminium alloy light enough for the task. Yet weight was only part of the problem. With the solid gold sun creating greater mass on one side, material had to be strategically removed from the supporting disc to restore equilibrium and ensure smooth rotation. “It took many months, from this bad surprise to succeeding and having the right result,” recalls William Faura, who oversees watchmaking and art mechanics development at Van Cleef & Arpels.
The dial demanded its own experiments. Developed with a specialist partner and the maison’s innovation department, its black Murano aventurine glass could not simply be treated as a darker version of conventional blue aventurine. “It’s not simply a matter of changing the colour,” Rainer Bernard, Van Cleef & Arpels’s head of watchmaking research and development, explains. “Black behaves differently, so we had to rethink both the recipe and the process—the proportions of materials, the temperature curve, the cooling time. Even small variations can change the final result.”
Above Fitting the guilloché mother-of-pearl shroud, which forms the horizon, onto the dial
Fitting the guilloché mother-of-pearl shroud, which forms the horizon, onto the dial
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Even the sun became a study in persistence. The creative studio wanted the effect of sunrise over Earth, combining a soft halo with clearly defined rays. Golden paint, gold leaf, freehand airbrushing and paint decals were all explored before the final solution combined exceptionally fine decal work with a light airbrush application. Bernard remembers a table covered with possibilities: “We made a lot of suns … a little bit lighter, a little bit darker, a little bit this, a little bit that.” By his recollection, there were some 40 or 50 versions before the team settled on the final effect. “If it’s not what we want, we won’t stop,” he says. “We can make hundreds of tests of something until we are happy with it.”
Turn the watch over and the viewpoint changes. A white gold engraving evokes lunar topography, while Earth appears in enamel tracing on sapphire crystal above the oscillating weight, surrounded by miniature-painted planets. Having watched the heavens from Earth on the dial, the wearer now looks back towards home from the moon.
With the Midnight Jour Nuit Phase de Lune, the achievement lies not only in combining two celestial cycles, but in making the materials and mechanics required to animate them recede behind a clear, intuitive experience. It is an approach Van Cleef & Arpels has long refined through its Poetic Complications: harnessing mechanical ingenuity to tell time with poetry and a touch of magic. “So much genius goes into making things simple,” Bernard reflects. “It’s more difficult to make it simple than to leave it complicated.”
Credits
Images: Van Cleef & Arpels
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Annabel Tan is the Editor of Watches and Jewellery at Tatler Singapore, where she covers all things luxury timepieces and fine jewellery across both print and digital platforms. She is also the Editor of Tatler GMT Singapore, a role that deepens her fascination with the ever-evolving world of watchmaking. Outside of work, she’s usually on the hunt for her next favourite watch that she can’t afford, planning her next beach getaway, or catching up on the latest Formula 1 race.
