SEALED WITH A KISS

Van Cleef & Arpels’ Love Stories watch collection, dedicated to women, shines a spotlight on its founding theme of love through age-old artisanal crafts

- Y-JEAN MUN-DELSALLE

Van Cleef & Arpels makes some of the watchmaking industry’s most visually stunning and enchanting timepieces filled with dreams and emotions, proposing a universe inhabited by fairies, ballerinas, flowers and butterflies. Known for its incredible enameled dials, it has 20 dedicated enamelers working in its manufacture, so when it decided to relaunch the popular Pont des Amoureux (French for “lovers’ bridge”) watch that was first seen in 2010 — part of its Poetic Complications family — in Paris this October in new ladies’ versions, it introduced not one but six different enamel dial scenes. Each comes with the option of gemset bracelets and is powered by a new automatic movement with a Valfleurier Q020 base instead of the original manual-winding JaegerLeCoultre base. It’s easy to see why lovers of beautiful complicated timepieces fell in love with it back then, and why they’ll fall in love with it all over again.

Mr. Nicolas Bos, president and CEO of Van Cleef & Arpels, explains why the brand is revisiting a nine-year-old creation: “The first version of the Pont des Amoureux watch gave life to two lovers meeting on a bridge in Paris at night,” he says. “This year, Van Cleef & Arpels wanted to make this couple evolve in different sceneries: during daytime but also through the four seasons. When we developed these new versions, the idea was also to offer a new function: an on-demand animation that allows the two characters to kiss on the bridge not only at noon and midnight, but at any hour.”