Production-wise, its flagship collection is incontestably the Alhambra. But the highlight of the watchmaking show at the last SIHH was, of course, the new Lady Arpels Planetarium, a conversation piece developed in collaboration with the independent brand, Christiaan van der Klaauw. And that is another point that sets it apart from its fellow companies at Richemont, who are very reluctant to reveal the names of their partners: whether it be van der Klaauw, Jean-Marc Wiederrecht or François Junod, Van Cleef & Arpels makes no mystery about its collaborators – although the same cannot be said of its business results!

“For more than a century, the company has expressed itself first and foremost through its jewellery, with a vast abundance of creative designs. Jewellery gave us the chance to explore a large number of fields of expression, such as nature, dance, poetry and theatre. It’s from these fields that we draw the philosophy that corresponds to us, centred on positive values, such as childhood, naivety, innocence. Today, that corresponds both to our jewellery and watch creations,” sums up a serene Nicolas Bos. Europa Star went to meet him.

A number of jewellery companies have made forays into watchmaking, but have not stayed, or just maintain that business at a minimum. As a jeweller, how do you establish yourself in the watchmaking business for the long term?

Watchmaking is still quite a technical, rather masculine world. It’s an engineer’s world first and foremost. Our vision of time is rather unusual. It’s more narrative, more feminine, geared to the rhythm of nature and not to measuring performance, chronographs being the most extreme example of that. Our colleagues do that very well already!

Via luxury jewellery watches we’ve developed a philosophy that exploits the potential of mechanical movements to design poetic complications. Watchmaking is to jewellery what cinema is to photography: it sets it in motion! Our vision is very simple: we don’t start with the technical or mechanical side, but with the narrative. For example, we unashamedly show the very “demonstrative” side of the automata. It’s poetry, but it’s not restricting.

«Watchmaking is to jewellery what cinema is to photography: it sets it in motion!»

The brands of the Richemont Group have vertically integrated their production to a large degree in recent years. But in your watchmaking business you’ve done the opposite and struck up numerous partnerships with other companies…

It’s true that, since ours is essentially a jewellery-making culture, we haven’t systematically integrated watchmaking know-how. Instead, we brought together the most competent figures in the watchmaking world and got them to work with our Paris-based jewellers. The idea was first of all to design the cases around existing movements.

But in fact Van Cleef & Arpels has often co-produced watches in the past. With Universal, for example. Our company has always sought out the best movements so as to affiliate them with our design expertise. That also explains our philosophy of promoting the watchmakers who work with us, whether it’s other brands like Jaeger-LeCoultre or Piaget, or independent watchmakers like Jean-Marc Wiedderrecht. For our customers, it’s reassuring.