A highlight of the annual Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie (SIHH), held every January in Geneva, is seeing the various brands compete against each other in the very technical and artistic ends of the market with creations that have never been seen beforeoften with prices that are equally out of this world. One of our vorites from this category from 2014s SIHH is the 44mm Midnight Plantarium from Van Cleef & Arpels Poetic Astronomy series. In addition to telling time by way of a shooting star that rotates along the outmost area of the ce, the watch more prominently features an accurate rotation and representation of the Earth and the five other planets visible from here around the sunMercury in 88 days, Venus in 224, Earth in a year, Mars in 687 days, Jupiter in 12 years and Saturn in 29. Its a very complex watch and a true display of supreme watch. But as complicated as the piece iswith 396 parts to the movementits also beautiful.
Astronomical representations were popular in the 18th century, the root of this timepieces inspiration. Manually driven ancestors of the modern planetarium were created across multiple shapes, sizes and stylesfrom watches to mobiles. For even longer, people have been captivated by the heavens, and because of this Van Cleef & Arpels captures its magnificence and awe it inspires.
On top of the already extravagant design, one of the more standout features is the ability to set any of the 365 days in the year as a lucky star, an additional element in this magical cosmos. When your day arrives the lucky star is located just above the Earth on the dial.
The complication is not only to make orbits for the planets, the biggest or the most complicated is to make it with this type of caseits very thin, their master watchmaker, Denis Giguet, explains to CH. Its ntastical and beautiful, as well. The mechanical movement with an automatic winding unit was developed in two parts: An internal movement (made in-house) is partnered with a module made specifically for Van Cleef & Arpels by boutique designer
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