Van Cleef & Arpels

Van Cleef & Arpels is a French high jewellery maison founded in 1906 when Alfred Van Cleef and his uncle-in-law Salomon Arpels opened at 22 Place Vendôme in Paris. Beyond jewellery the house has long made decorative and secret watches; for its 2006 centenary it launched the Poetic Complications collection, marrying narrative dials with mechanical ingenuity. Today under Richemont the brand is celebrated for jewellery-inspired watches—Lady Arpels, Cadenas and other poetic pieces—that treat time as storytelling as much as measurement.