Watches and Wonders 2026: Van Cleef & Arpels’s Poetic Complications shine

Among the highlights of this year’s novelties is the Midnight Jour Nuit Phase de Lune, which brings together two astronomical complications within a single composition. Building upon the maison’s signature day-and-night display, the 42mm timepiece in white gold introduces a moonphase indication revealed through an on-demand animation: at the press of a button, the dial makes a complete rotation to unveil the lunar disc even when it lies hidden beyond the horizon. 

The dial is rendered in black Murano aventurine glass, developed with a long-standing glass-making partner and the maison’s innovation department to achieve exceptional depth, and enlivened by a fine bronze-tinted shimmer. First created in 17th-century Murano in Italy, aventurine glass is distinguished by copper inclusions suspended within the material, producing a constellation-like sparkle. Achieving this effect demands considerable patience: once removed from the furnace, the glass must cool gradually over as long as six weeks, during which microscopic copper crystals form and stabilise. Their size, structure and distribution determine how light is reflected across the surface. 

Ensuring the sparkle appears consistent across the dial is particularly complex. If crystallisation develops unevenly, areas may appear overly dense or visually flat. Each segment of glass is therefore carefully selected and cut to preserve a harmonious diffusion of light. As Bernard explained, the challenge lies in achieving a distribution that feels organic and visually harmonious. “It’s not simply a matter of changing the colour,” he added, referring to the more commonly seen blue aventurine. “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.”

Against this backdrop, a guilloché gold sun gradually yields to a mother-of-pearl moon over a 24-hour cycle, articulating time as a continuous celestial rhythm—the interplay of these various materials and textures integral to the narrative. On the reverse side of the watch, the perspective shifts for its wearer: the cosmos is engraved as though viewed from the surface of the moon, rather than from Earth.

For Faura, achieving such a Poetic Complications watch that brings together a range of expertise—from the mastery of materials to artistry in watchmaking, design and storytelling—requires rigorous technical orchestration behind the scenes. He likened the process to “conducting a watchmaking orchestra”, where engineers, designers and artisans work in concert to ensure that the mechanics serve the story being told. The challenge lies not simply in creating a new complication, but in ensuring that it communicates emotion with clarity and immediacy.

Travel provides another lens through which time is interpreted in the new Midnight Heure d’ici & Heure d’ailleurs, which features a dual time zone display with double jumping hours and retrograde minutes. The heure d’ici—the home or reference hour shown in the upper window—and the heure d’ailleurs—the second time zone displayed in the lower window—advance in perfect sync thanks to a single sector gear that coordinates both discs and the retrograde minute hand. When the minute hand reaches 60, it instantly returns to zero while the corresponding hour jumps forward, marking the start of a new cycle.

Despite the underlying complexity, operation is effortless. A single crown on the 39mm rose gold case allows the wearer to wind the movement, and set both the hour for the two time zones and the minutes simultaneously. For Bernard, such ease and intuitiveness are central to the maison’s philosophy. “So much genius goes into making things simple,” he said. “We try to design the movement in the most elegant way, using the fewest components possible. When something looks clean, intuitive and effortless, that is the work of a master.”

Inspired by the optical depth of some precious stones—such as rubies, which exhibit cool undertones despite their warm colour—the dial is rendered in enamel tinted a deep amber-brown hue, layered over a mirror-polished gold background. The result is a dial with nuanced tonal shifts that catches the light differently depending on the viewing angle, creating a sense of depth and fluidity. 

While the 2026 novelties largely revolve around the theme of astronomy, love remains Van Cleef & Arpels’s emotional centre, exemplified by two new additions to the Extraordinary Dials family: the Lady Rencontre Céleste and the Lady Retrouvailles Célestes. Complementing each other, the watches draw upon the East Asian legend of Vega and Altair—also known as Zhinu (the weaver girl) and Niulang (the cowherd)—celestial lovers separated by the Milky Way and reunited only once a year, capturing both their wistful encounter and the rapture of their reunion. 

The 33mm white gold Lady Rencontre Céleste unfolds in blues, portraying the couple with hands clasped against a star-studded sky. Their white gold silhouettes emerge from behind diamond-embellished clouds crafted from plique-à-jour enamel, while rose-cut diamonds suggest their faces. The dial background, in champlevé and grisaille enamel, features a sapphire crescent along the left border, its setting beads painted using the miniature technique to enhance depth and colour. Casting a soft glow over this scene is a diamond-set moon.

Meanwhile, the 33mm rose gold Lady Retrouvailles Célestes evokes the lovers’ reunion in pinks and mauves. The figures stand before a crescent of mauve sapphires, reaching across an aerial bridge of sculpted white gold birds. Clouds and veils in plique-à-jour enamel, punctuated with diamonds set directly in the material, give the scene luminous transparency, highlighting the emotional intensity of the moment. On the reverse of each watch, the Summer Triangle asterism—comprising the stars Vega, Altair and Deneb—is hand-engraved, a process that took more than 22 hours. Limited to eight pieces each, the timepieces embody the maison’s commitment to métiers d’art as both technical discipline and storytelling medium. 

Van Cleef & Arpels’s identity as both jeweller and watchmaker is expressed most directly in its jewellery watches. This year, it revisits the Ludo Secret, a design introduced in 1935 that, inspired by the Ludo bracelet of 1934, is distinguished by its belt-inspired bracelet and trompe-l’œil clasp concealing the dial. Returning to such signatures, Renier noted, forms an important part of the maison’s creative continuity. “Our inspiration is deeply rooted in our heritage—reinterpreting and reinventing it—as well as in the universes the maison continually explores, whether nature or astronomy,” she said. “These form two essential pillars in shaping the Van Cleef & Arpels of tomorrow. In revisiting Ludo, we pay tribute to an important signature in the maison’s design language and storytelling.”

Composed of articulated gold links set with sapphires, the bracelet retains its couture sensibility while incorporating contemporary refinements in durability and ergonomics. A discreet mechanism reveals the guilloché mother-of-pearl dial when gentle pressure is simultaneously applied to the sides of the clasp, preserving the element of surprise that has long defined the design.

Similarly, the new 23mm Perlée watch in white gold reinterprets one of the maison’s most recognisable jewellery signatures in horological form. A double row of white gold beads frames an aventurine dial whose midnight-blue tones evoke the depth of the night sky, illustrating the quiet dialogue between jewellery and watchmaking.

Across these novelties, the maison’s approach remains consistent: technical ingenuity is never pursued for its own sake, but in service of emotion and meaning. As Faura noted: “For me, ‘tradition’, ‘innovation’ and ‘emotion’ are the three keywords that define Van Cleef & Arpels’s expression of watchmaking. A timepiece has to create emotion for the person who wears it.” Renier echoed this, saying: “The maison has always embraced a poetic and positive vision of life. Bringing emotion to creation, and finding beauty in the world around us, have long shaped our approach to timekeeping.”

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