Van Cleef & Arpels is a Paris jewellery house founded in 1906 at 22 Place Vendôme by Alfred Van Cleef and his father-in-law Salomon Arpels; Alfred had married Estelle Arpels, and her brothers, beginning with Charles Arpels, soon joined the business. Now part of the Richemont group, which lists it among its jewellery maisons, it is primarily a high-jewellery house, and its watchmaking concentrates on women’s watches and on complications built around storytelling.
Its watches are grouped largely under the Poetic Complications collection, in which animated dials tell small stories. The Midnight Planétarium of 2014, developed with Christiaan van der Klaauw, shows the planets orbiting at their real speeds, with Saturn taking 29 years per revolution, and the Lady Arpels Planétarium followed in 2018. At the 2024 GPHG the house won three prizes: Ladies’ Complication for the Lady Arpels Brise d’Été, whose butterflies move across the dial on demand, Artistic Crafts for the Lady Arpels Jour Enchanté and the Ladies’ Watch Prize for the Lady Jour Nuit. In 2025 it presented the Lady Arpels Bal des Amoureux Automate, whose automaton brings a couple together for a kiss at noon and midnight.
