VAN CLEEF & ARPELS WATCHES

Like its Richemont stablemat Piaget, Van Cleef & Arpels is known more for its jewelry than its watches, and like Cartier, VC&A is headquartered in Paris but produces watches in Switzerland. In contrast to both, however, Van Cleef & Arpels, founded by Dutch jeweler AlfredVan Cleef and his father-in-law Salomon Arpels, was a jeweler before it was a watchmaker.Accordingly, most of the maison’s timepieces are designed as timekeeping pieces of jewelry, the most high-end pieces equipped with what the company calls “Poetic Complications.” Its earliest watches from the 1920s were primarily jewel-encrusted ladies’ models like the now-famous Shutter and Cadenas models. In the modern era, VC&A regularly astonishes watch aficionados, male and female, with pieces like the Midnight Planetarium, whose dial hosts an entire solar system, beautifully executed in precious materials on its starry, aventurine surface, and whose mechanical movement accurately displays the relative position of the planets in real time — an incredible feat of watchmaking and a powerful demonstration of Van Cleef and Arpels’ capabilities. For men looking for a simpler, elegant dress watch, the Pierre Arpels collection is an excellent, off-the-beaten-path choice. 

Founded: 1896

Headquarters: Paris, France

Ownership: Richemont Group

Notable models: Poetic Complications, Pierre Arpels

Did you know: Van Cleef & Arpels counts opera star Maria Callas, Princess Grace of Monaco, and heir to the Woolworth fortune Barbara Hutton among its customers