Van Cleef & Arpels 2008 SIHH Collection

AnthonyTsai's 2008 SIHH report delves into Van Cleef & Arpels' "Jewellery timepieces and poetic complications" collection, offering a critical yet comprehensive look at their foray into men's watches. This article evaluates pieces like the "Midnight in Paris" and "Midnight Tourbillon," assessing their unique complications and design philosophy from a horological purist's perspective.

The theme for the Van Cleef & Arpels watches for SIHH 2008 was "Jewellery timepieces and poetic complications" and a couple pieces were made for men.  I'm not sure if I like the term "poetic complications" because it is a little feminine sounding   Either way, let's go straight to the watches because I'm pretty sure many of the hard core PuristS are probably scratching their heads asking themselves why are we covering Van Cleef & Arpels this year since their watches are typically jewellery watches.

The "Midnight in Paris" is available in a 41mm pink gold and 42mm case white gold case with diamond bezel as shown in the below picture.  The frosted blue quartz dial consists of a rotating dark blue aventurine disc which depicts a map of the stars, which are set in diamonds, as if one is looking up above in the Paris sky.  This disc rotates during the 365 day cycle of the year as it appears from that movement in Paris. 

Diamond bezel Midnight in Paris

Midnight in Paris also features a calendar on the back with meteorite stone at the outer circumference of the movement and a rear hunter lid.  I'm not sure which base movement the Midnight in Paris uses but it definitely isn't an in-house Van Cleef & Arpels' movement.  I really don't see what the point of having the calendar on the back is but guess Van Cleef wants the owner to be able to remember the placement of the stars on any given date such as a birthday or anniversary.  Adjust the date with the ratchet type device on the back and turn the star disc manually to coincide with whichever date you desire so you can see how the star placement looks like from the Paris sky.  In my opinion, this is a pointless complication especially when most people do not reside in Paris.

Hunter lid caseback of the Midnight in Paris

Below are a couple more watches using the same rotating disc concept but these are the women versions.

The next watch in the Midnight collection is the Midnight Tourbillon which comes in a 42mm white gold case and house a Piaget tourbillon movement.  Available in 2 dial versions - black mother-of-pearl dial or diamond set.  Below is the Midnight Tourbillon Exclusive which is the fully set version with baguette cut and round diamonds. 

Imagine looking at this Midnight Tourbillon watch in the sunlight!

The rear of Midnight Toubillon with mother-of-pearl plates

Lastly is the Midnight Lake which mimics the iridescent reflections of a lake by use of different colored mother-of-pearl.  The tourbillon is also based on a Piaget movement.

When I went to the Van Cleef & Arpels appointment, I came in with the preconceived notion of not being blown away and certainly that was the end result.  Maybe in a few years Van Cleef & Arpels will make something more horologically interesting for us watch freaks, but I don't see them doing so for quite some time.  Either way, I appreciate the time and courtesy they extended to us at our appointment.