Monochrome Watches
An online magazine dedicated to fine watches
Interview

Van Cleef & Arpels’ Stéphanie Rault Explains the Brand’s Approach to Watchmaking

From petite & feminine elegant watches to large automatons.

| By Frank Geelen | 8 min read |
Stephanie Rault - van cleef & arpels

Each year, during the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Geneve (or in short, the GPHG), one brand always stands out because it wins so many awards: Van Cleef & Arpels. It might not have been the name you expected; however, if you look at the sheer number of awards it has won over the years, it is more than impressive (three in the 2024 GPHG alone). While we have scarcely covered the typical high jewellery watches from Van Cleef & Arpels, the opening of a new boutique in Amsterdam was the perfect moment to learn more about the brand. For this, I turned to Stéphanie Rault, European President of the Maison, to hear about Van Cleef & Arpels’ watches and future plans.

Van Cleef and Arpels Lady Arpels Planetarium
Van Cleef and Arpels Lady Arpels Planetarium

Frank Geelen, MONOCHROME I mainly know Van Cleef & Arpels as a jewellery brand. If it wasn’t for the numerous prizes Van Cleef & Arpels has won or the rather spectacular Midnight Planetarium and the Lady Arpels Planetarium, both in collaboration with Christiaan van der Klaauw, I wouldn’t have associated the brand as a watch brand. How would you describe Van Cleef & Arpels as a watch or jewellery brand?

Stéphanie Rault, Van Cleef & Arpels – As you said perfectly in the introduction, we’re a jewellery Maison which has been around for over 100 years. The tagline on all our advertising is High Jewelry Maison, Place Vendôme, Paris. So that’s really the heart of who we are. But having said that, timepieces have always been part of our history and patrimony since the very beginning. I think the first watch was produced in the very early years of the Maison. So it’s a category that we have always preserved and is important for us, but obviously not the main part of our business. So, it is a bit of a niche category for us.

Ad – Scroll to continue with article

The watches look rather different from most other watch brands, which makes me wonder about the design process. How is this handled at Van Cleef & Arpels?

Stéphanie – The timepieces universe within Van Cleef & Arpels is handled in a very special way. We have what we call the poetry of time. The angle is always to tell a story with poetic complications or extraordinary dials. We start with a story and then see how we can fit it in a dial and, obviously, all the mechanics that go around and behind it. But it is not the main purpose: the main purpose is telling the story.

Van Cleef and Arpels Lady Arpels Pont des Amoureux
The Van Cleef & Arpels Poetry of Time Pont des Amoureux

For instance, one of our most emblematic timepieces is Poetry of Time Pont des Amoureux, a very poetic complication. The goal was to tell the story of a man and a woman who meet at noon, and then at midnight, they kiss on a bridge, and to make the mechanism work around that. It’s a retrograde movement; the lady indicates the hours, and the man indicates the minutes, and they meet at noon and at midnight.

Then, our other timepieces are what we call jewels that tell time. So they look like jewellery, but they are in fact watches, and they have the same aesthetic and identity as our main jewellery watches. Take, for instance, the Alhambra, which features the well-known four-clover motif, which has been in the collection since 1968 (and thus in the collection for more than 50 years now). We have a watch, several watches actually, within that collection.

We also have the Cadenas watch that looks like a lock. Again, it is worn more as a bracelet, and the time is a bit hidden. But still, that’s also a tradition of the early 20th century when a lady was not supposed to consult the time. So the time was somewhat concealed to make sure it looked more like a bracelet.

And what about the intriguing automatons I’ve seen?

Making automatons is an ancient tradition. These are very, very specific objects, one of a kind, customized for each client, and obviously, these are produced in very, very small quantities.

We have partnered with a workshop in Saint Croix, Switzerland, which has been making automatons for centuries. Today, a single craftsman runs the workshop in a hidden mountain location. One of our goals of teaming up with this workshop was to transmit the expertise of this craftsman who works alone in the atelier. Since we’ve been working together on these projects, he has had to recruit more people and teach them his expertise. So that’s also a very nice story.

We’re talking about a few pieces, very extraordinary objects, that find people that want to own them. Obviously, this is not something that we will have in every boutique, and obviously, these are rather exceptional objects. So that’s a bit of the landscape of timepieces within Van Cleef & Arpels. It’s linked to what we do in jewellery: telling a story or making jewellery, and jewellery that tells time. And then objects that tell time.

Looking at the collection, I can see one watch that could be considered a gent’s watch: the Pierre Arpels. Is it the brand’s intention to keep it within those known segments or maybe to expand the men’s collection?

The Pierre is a line that we have for gentlemen, and we feel that it’s important to have something to offer them. It’s a watch that has been in our collection for a long time; it was designed by Pierre Arpels in the mid-20th century, which, of course, has been modernized a little bit. It’s a very classic watch, very elegant.

For us, it’s important to have this watch for gentlemen; however, we’re not planning to develop it that much more. First, because there is a lot already on the market, and secondly, because, again, we’re a jewellery house, and we want the timepieces to be linked to what we do primarily, which is jewellery.

As you say, people don’t necessarily see us as a player in the watch market, but we are a watch player in a very, very different way.

How’s the watchmaking part organized? I mean, Van Cleef & Arpels is part of Richemont, meaning that several “sister brands” within the group could supply movements. And there’s Val Fleurier, Richemont’s movement manufacturer. And if I’m correct, you also used to work, or still work, with Agenhor.

We have internalized a lot of things that you can see on your visit to our facilities in Meyrin. The more we grow in this category, the more internalized we become. But obviously, we are in a group where there are a lot of synergies with watchmaking. So when it’s relevant, we’re going to use a movement from one of our sister brands. But again, only when it’s relevant. Most of the parts are now made in the workshop in Meyrin.

Is there a predisposition towards mechanical or quartz movements?

There’s also no strict rule on that. We’re more focused on automatic movements, and most of our complications are based on automatic movements. Again, it starts with the creation and then what makes more sense. So we have quartz movements for some ladies’ watches. Ladies’ watches are often jewels that tell time, and not every movement fits. But again, there’s no strict rule. It’s more what would be better in the piece that we develop.

And what about those spectacular automatons?

Yeah, it’s pretty interesting. The profile of people who are interested in these objects is really about people who are super collectors, people who are fascinated by the movement and technique and also fascinated by the stories behind them.

Last month, for instance, we delivered an automaton to one of our clients, and I remember the sales associate filming them when the automaton was delivered to the client’s home. After starting the automaton, a (mechanical) flower opened, and a little butterfly emerged flapping its wings. You could see the eyes of the gentleman; he was like a child discovering something that he obviously had seen before, but the fact that he was in his living room, in his home, and that he could play with it whenever he wanted to, touched him profoundly. And you could see in his eyes that it was very moving, very touching, like when you take kids to see the Christmas lights somewhere, it’s like a dream.

How and where are the automatons created?

Our partner in St. Croix does the technical part; however, everything else is done in our workshop in Meyrin. This is where an amazing number of crafts come together under one roof, starting with the stone selection, the stone cutting, the jewellery making, the polishing, the setting technique, etc. It’s really like a giant jigsaw, and then it comes to life. It takes years to develop and make; it’s really something that takes a long, long time.

So it’s safe to assume that you don’t have automatons lying around in stock? How does the ordering process work? Do customers who are interested in such timepieces just come to the boutique and express their desires, and then their own process starts?

On the whole, it’s people that we know very well, customers who have purchased high jewellery for a long time, who are interested in these objects. Again, we’re talking about a few people – people who have heard about it – thanks to Watches & Wonders because we always showcase them during the fair. A conversation gets started and during the process, they come to see it in the making, in the workshop in Meyrin, so they see it while it’s being made.

We rarely have them in boutiques, although one that was displayed for the Christmas holiday season in our Geneva boutique is a big planetarium.

Van Cleef and Arpels Planetarium Table Clock

For more information on the high jewellery collections of Van Cleef & Arpels, please visit VanCleefArpels.com.

https://monochrome-watches.com/interview-van-cleef-and-arpels-stephanie-rault-haute-joallerie-high-jewellery-automaton-planetarium/

Leave a Reply