The Van Cleef & Arpels Lady Arpels Brise d’Été is an animated jewellery watch from the Maison’s Poetic Complications line, reference VCARPERU00. The 38 mm case is 18-carat white gold, with a bezel of brilliant-cut diamonds, and the piece also uses rose and yellow gold. Van Cleef & Arpels lists 120 diamonds totalling 3.45 carats, 12 spessartite garnets (0.09 carat) and 47 tsavorite garnets (0.1 carat). The dial has a matte mother-of-pearl base with diamond hour markers and Arabic numerals. Flowers in vallonné enamel with miniature-painted blue gradations carry spessartite pistils, while the leaves and grass use plique-à-jour and champlevé enamel. Two gold butterflies in plique-à-jour enamel tell the time, taking turns at noon and midnight. Power comes from a self-winding mechanical movement with an on-demand animation module. A sapphire caseback shows a guilloché rotor beneath painted flowers.

Pressing a pusher on the left side of the case sets the butterflies flying around the dial while the flowers and blades of grass sway, a scene the brand describes as a light summer breeze. Van Cleef & Arpels says the watch took four years to develop in its Geneva watchmaking workshops. It was presented at Watches and Wonders 2024. The watch comes on a green alligator strap with a diamond-set white gold pin buckle, and the strap can be changed by the wearer. aBlogtoWatch reported a price of about USD 175,000 at launch; the brand’s US site listed it at USD 188,000 including taxes in October 2026.

The Lady Arpels Brise d’Été won the Ladies’ Complication Watch Prize at the 2024 Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève, part of a year in which Van Cleef & Arpels took three GPHG prizes. Ariel Adams of aBlogtoWatch found the concept charming and the enamel work attractive, but noted that the animation has little practical use, that the brand shared few movement details, and that the design suits a woman’s wrist far more than a man’s. Time+Tide called the dial legible despite its complexity and considered the 38 mm size well judged, and singled out the interchangeable strap. As of October 2026 the watch is in production and available to order from Van Cleef & Arpels; it is not presented as a limited edition.