This year, renowned watches and jewellery brand Van Cleef & Arpels emerged a big winner by sweeping three prizes at the GPHG 2024 awards, a testament to the house’s savoir faire and expertise in both creative design and watchmaking.
The prize in the Artistic Crafts Watch category went to the Lady Arpels Jour Enchanté, a stunning piece of wearable art contained within a 41mm case. A marriage of watchmaking and jewellery craft, the watch depicts a graceful fairy silhouette picking flowers under the early morning sun, meticulously brought to life through expert manipulation of white gold, plique-à-jour enamel and diamonds, alongside the use of the newly developed façonné enameling technique on the dial. The Lady Arpels Jour Enchanté was developed over two years and took 180 hours of work just to assemble the dial, making this prize one most deserved.
The Ladies’ Watch prize went to the twinkling Lady Jour Nuit watch, whose inspiration and tribute to the starry night sky through the vision of Van Cleef & Arpels’ Poetry of Time makes it a mesmerising piece. Its Day/Night function works with a 24-hour rotating disc that revolves imperceptibly throughout the day as the aventurine dial face, embellished with a sun of guilloché yellow gold, a diamond-paved moon, and white gold stars, reflects the day and night in real time. The art continues in the case back too, where the oscillating weight is covered in a star-studded sky, and an enamel decal fairy stands guard.
The third prize that Van Cleef & Arpels picked up at GPHG 2024 goes to the Lady Arpels Brise D’Été for the Ladies’ Complication Watch category, and it’s no question why. Also from the Poetic Complications collection, the Lady Arpels Brise D’Été features a stunning on-demand animation function that breathes life into the garden scene, sending the two butterflies fluttering around the dial while the flowers sway. Inspired by the freshness of a summer’s day, the matte mother-of-pearl dial perfectly highlights the scene in front, created using Van Cleef & Arpels signature plique-à-jour enamel and vallonné enamel techniques.
See more winners from GPHG 2024 here, and then catch up on more watches and jewellery here.
