Crystal Magazine Mar 25, 2021
Van Cleef & Arpels partnering with 21,39 Jeddah Arts for the sixth consecutive year in KSA
Throughout its history, High Jewelry Maison Van Cleef & Arpels has consistently expressed its dedication to the cultural and artistic sphere showcasing this commitment through a variety of collaborations. Reaffirming this passion dear to the Maison, Van Cleef & Arpels is proud to encourage the Saudi creative art scene with its support to 21,39 Jeddah Arts 2021. Organized by the Saudi Art Council in the city of Jeddah, this year’s event under the theme of “The Secrets of Alidades” curated by Fabien Danesi focuses on developing an artistic link between cartography and astronomy. Guests will rediscover their ever-moving environment with the help of the stars and planets, longitude and latitude, and all the other ways of tracing trajectories.
Van Cleef & Arpels partners with 21,39 Jeddah Arts for the sixth consecutive year, contributing to engage Saudi artists, designers, and thinkers to showcase their talent and creativity. Visitors at the Van Cleef & Arpels’ boutique in Al Khayyat will have the opportunity to view the display of work by Asma Bhamiyim who has created drawings showing how art is constantly nourished by exchanges and discussions and how practices rooted in the past are transformed to assert a singularity.
Whilst shedding light on the creative realm of Jewelry and Watchmaking, Van Cleef & Arpels delights in the theme of Astronomy offering a striking vision of the universe, tinged with dreams. Galaxies of stones, nebulae of motifs and constellations of savoir-faire: the cosmos reveals its poetic character in the Maison’s collections. Astronomy has been a historic source of inspiration, enriched by enthralled astronomers’, writers’ and artists’ visions that have fueled the imagination of the Maisonʼs designers, expert gemologists, watchmakers and craftsmen.
Van Cleef & Arpels pays homage to the emotion instilled by the dazzling spectacle of the heavens and the stars through its Poetic Astronomy. From cycles of the sun to the wonders of the starry night and the dreamlike patterns of constellations, the marvels of the universe have inspired creations that combine the poetry of the cosmos with the measurement of time. Throughout the collections, watchmakers, jewelers and craftsmen deploy their savoir-faire to bring miniature tableaux to life, ushering the onlooker into a world of contemplation and dreams.
Midnight and Lady Arpels Planétarium
As part of Poetic Astronomy, Van Cleef & Arpels’ Midnight Planétarium timepiece offers a means of immortalizing one’s own lucky day in the universe, while admiring the course of the planets. The masculine timepiece provides a miniature representation of the movement of the six planets around the Sun and their position at any given time. Earth and Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn – all visible from Earth with the naked eye – are set in motion thanks to self- winding mechanical movement of great complexity.
The Maison also imagined a feminine version, the Lady Arpels Planétarium watch, which depicts the Sun and its closest planets: Mercury, Venus and Earth – accompanied by its satellite, the Moon. Each heavenly body moves at its actual speed, orbiting the dial in 88 days for Mercury, 224 days for Venus and 365 days for Earth. In a major innovation, the Moon also rotates around the Earth on this piece, completing its orbit in 29.5 days and bringing the dial to life with its daily dance.
