With a Soirée Themed to the Most Romantic Bridge in Paris, Van Cleef & Arpels Launched Poetic New Luxury Watches That Kiss

Jewelers tell great stories. And
when Van Cleef & Arpels is the storyteller, chances are, it
is a great love story.  

For the Place Vendôme jeweler,
Paris and its cobbled streets, zinc rooftops, and lit-up bridges
have long provided the basic elements of a romantic narrative that
was revived last week when Van Cleef & Arpels launched new versions
of a jewelry watch known as Lady Arpels Le Pont des Amoureux (or
the “Bridge of Lovers”).

The evening organised by Van Cleef & Arpels was more about
reviving an old flame than igniting a new passion, given that the
timepiece has been part of Van Cleef & Arpels’s “poetic
complications” collection for women for about a
decade. The timepieces are called “complications”
because they feature a function that allows them to do more than
just tell the time. In the case of Le Pont, a retrograde module in
the movement allows a scene on the dial to come to life: it shows a
couple meeting on a bridge, with the girl marking the hours and the
boy, the minutes. They slide toward one another for precisely 12
hours before leaning into a kiss, which happens with perfect
regularity at noon or midnight, all the while set against a
backdrop of silvery Parisian rooftops. When it was first launched
in 2010, the model was widely acknowledged for its poetry and
technicity, winning the top prize in the “Ladies’ Watch” category
at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève.

“This evening is a celebration
of romance, of love stories, and of the history of Paris,”
announced Nicolas Bos, chief executive and creative director of Van
Cleef & Arpels, at the start of a gala soirée organized to present
six new versions of Le Pont des Amoureux.

Before dinner, some 200 guests
were invited to join in on a sunset cruise along the Seine that
also took them under some of the city’s most breathtaking bridges.
There are, in all, 37 bridges that connect the opposite banks of
the Seine. Some of their fascinating stories were relayed to the
guests, including those that have inspired artists like Pissarro
and Renoir, or the filmmaker Woody Allen in Midnight in
Paris.  

“Le Pont des Arts, also known as
‘Bridge of Lovers,’ is said to be the most romantic bridge in
Paris,” a spokesperson for Van Cleef & Arpels explained. The
famous bridge connects the Louvre Museum on the right bank to the
Quai de Conti, just opposite. It is a pedestrian walkway on which
couples hang padlocks, “locking in” their love on the wrought-iron
guardrails before throwing the keys into the river. The practice is
now disallowed by the City of Paris. 

After disembarking at the foot
of the Henri IV bridge, black-tie-clad guests were whisked away to
the arenas of the “Garde Républicaine,” the prestigious cavalry
regiment that is a part of the French National Guard. One of its
horse-training arenas had been transformed to look like the décor
inside the dial of the Pont des Amoureux, a charming setting for a
three-course sit-down dinner prepared by the Michelin-starred
chef, Eric Frechon.

Still, Le Pont des Amoureux is
much more than a tribute to the poetry of love. It is a showcase
for the know-how of Van Cleef & Arpels, first in goldsmithing and
gem-setting, but also in all of the métiers d’art crafts that have a hand in making the delicate
dials in colored grisaille enamel, each of which is sculpted in
gold and set in a diamond-studded case, some with details in
miniature painting. “Grisaille enamel was developed in France
starting in the 16^th century,” explained Van Cleef
& Arpels, in the product’s technical sheet.  “Here, we have
applied ‘colored’ grisaille enamel for the first time, using pink
and blue enamels against a white background, which takes 30-40
hours of work and requires firing each dial 10
times.”  

This year, an option is
available for a gem-set bracelet on each of the six, numbered
editions, which consist of a daytime version in rose gold, a
nightfall version in white gold, and a different version for each
of the four seasons. All the dials are distinctly different: each
features a different bridge, and the lovers are dressed according
to the season. 

Technically speaking, this
year’s models also showcase an unprecedented innovation: the couple
on the dial will now kiss at any hour of the day or night, instead
of just twice a day.  A new “on demand” module triggered at
the push of a button has been developed to lessen the “wait” time
in between kisses.

“For us, watchmaking is defined
as the art and technique of telling time, but we bring to it our
own sense of poetry and magic,” Bos said.

For Van Cleef & Arpels, this was
the first major product launch since the jeweler opted out of the
Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie (SIHH) in Geneva last
year. For decades, the Richemont-owned house had been a pillar of
the watch-industry trade show, which was founded in 1991. Last
January, it bowed out of the SIHH, announcing that, going forward,
it would present its novelties independently and on its own
timetable.  

“I had always dreamed of making
a speech in front of the Arc de Triomphe,” Bos said in his closing
statement at the launch, as he stood before an image of the solemn
Parisian monument usually reserved, in real life, for speeches by
heads of state. But on that night, the Arc de Triomphe became more
than an element of décor, but a symbol of Van Cleef & Arpels’s
Parisian heritage, and of the jeweler writing its own
story.

The post With a Soirée Themed to the Most Romantic Bridge in
Paris, Van Cleef & Arpels Launched Poetic New Luxury Watches That
Kiss appeared first on artnet News.