Van Cleef & Arpels took home the prizes for Innovation and Mechanical Clock at the prestigious watchmaking awards
Widely considered to be the Oscars of the watchmaking world, the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG) is an annual competition that recognises the finest horological creations from the last 12 months. This year, 21 prizes were handed out across various categories such as Men’s Watch, Ladies’ Complication Watch, Innovation, and more.
Van Cleef & Arpels impressed with a double win, clinching the Innovation Prize for its Lady Arpels Heures Florales Cerisier watch, and the Mechanical Clock Prize for its Fontaine aux Oiseaux automaton.
The Innovation Prize is awarded to “the best competing timepiece offering an innovative vision of time measurement and/or opening up new development pathways for the watchmaking art”. Van Cleef & Arpels’ Lady Arpels Heures Florales Cerisier watch came out on top by combining the maison’s watchmaking expertise, jewellery craftsmanship and artistic savour-faire to bring a charming story to life on the dial.
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Nature has long served as inspiration for Van Cleef & Arpels, but in this timepiece, the maison has harnessed its savoir-faire to take its interpretation of flora and fauna to the next level. There are 12 flowers on the 3D dial, each equipped with a mechanism that allows the petals to open and close, poetically displaying the hour with blooming buds. This is complemented by a retrograde minute display in a lateral window on the side of the case.
With the Lady Arpels Heures Florales Cerisier, telling the time becomes a spectacle, as the flowers blossom and close in a random pattern—much like in nature itself—refreshing the dial’s scenery every 60 minutes to surprise and delight its wearer.