Van Cleef &amp; Arpels&rsquo; enduring affinity with the world of the choreographic arts is epitomised by its jewellery and watches, and partnerships with dance companies and institutions the world over.

When Van Cleef &amp; Arpels made its return to the Watches &amp; Wonders fair earlier this year, it presented magnificent works that evoke the poetry of time, a magical expression of time and its indication and passage, realised through the Maison&rsquo;s watchmaking expertise and jewellery savoir-faire. While the Poetic Astronomy automaton and the Lady Arpels Heures Florales Cerisier timepiece articulated the mystique surrounding time and the natural world, the Lady Arpels Ballerine Enchant&eacute;e watch intimated the connection between time and dance. Reimagined from a reference introduced in 2013 &mdash; which took inspiration from a quote by Anna Pavlova: &ldquo;I dreamed that I was a ballerina, and that I spent my life dancing as light as a butterfly&hellip;&rdquo; &mdash; the Lady Arpels Ballerine Enchant&eacute;e now exhibits a more dynamic posture in the figure of the dancer, and new colours and materials on her tutu created with champlev&eacute; and plique-&agrave;-jour enamel, as well as a self-winding double retrograde movement and time-on-demand module &mdash; an extraordinary ode to the ballerina, a prominent emblem of the Maison.

Lady Arpels Ballerine Enchantée

Van Cleef &amp; Arpels has had a long history depicting, collaborating with, and supporting the world of dance. In the 1920s in Paris, Louis Arpels, a ballet enthusiast, would often take his nephew Claude with him to the Op&eacute;ra Garnier. Some 20 years later, Louis Arpels directed the Maison&rsquo;s artisans to create bejewelled clips portraying lithe ballerinas in elegant costumes, inspired by famous dancers such as Russian doyenne Anna Pavlova; the diminutive figures wore faces of gold or rose-cut diamond and dresses set with gemstones, their slender silhouettes exuding lightness, elegance, vigour and spontaneity.

This relationship between Van Cleef &amp; Arpels and&nbsp;the world of dance was further strengthened in the&nbsp;1950s, when Claude Arpels met the choreographer&nbsp;George Balanchine, co-founder of the New York&nbsp;City Ballet. Both men were enamoured with&nbsp;gemstones and shared a love of dance, and an&nbsp;artistic partnership was ignited when Balanchine&nbsp;created the three-act abstract ballet&nbsp;Jewels,&nbsp;which&nbsp;debuted in 1967. Its three chapters were each&nbsp;inspired by emeralds, rubies and diamonds, and&nbsp;set to music from composers Gabriel Faur&eacute;, Igor&nbsp;Stravinsky, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
On the 40th anniversary of&nbsp;Jewels,&nbsp;Van Cleef &amp;&nbsp;Arpels collaborated with the London Royal Ballet&nbsp;on the Ballet Pr&eacute;cieux high jewellery collection&nbsp;of remarkable pieces based on four themes: ballet,&nbsp;emeralds, rubies and diamonds. The Maison&nbsp;expanded the collection in 2013 with jewels&nbsp;inspired by five famous Russian ballets including&nbsp;Swan Lake&nbsp;and&nbsp;The Nutcracker,&nbsp;and&nbsp;again in 2016&nbsp;with figurative and abstract creations in homage&nbsp;to classical ballets such as&nbsp;Les Sylphides&nbsp;and&nbsp;Le&nbsp;Pavillon d&rsquo;Armide.

Esprit de la Rose

Héloïse

Swan Lake

Sylphide

More than 50 years after the debut of&nbsp;Jewels,&nbsp;Van Cleef &amp; Arpels unveiled the Lady Arpels Ballerines Musicales watches, a three-piece series within the Poetic Complications collection that melds music, movement, and artistic expression. Each miniature tableau depicts a theatre stage draped with lavish curtains, with a diamond-set upper dial highlighting the retrograde time indication on a graduated 12-hour scale, and on-demand animation set to music: The curtains part to reveal hand-painted ballerinas who appear to flit across the dial to notes from a music box and a carillon underneath &mdash; tunes derived from the score of&nbsp;Jewels.

Lady Arpels Ballerine Musicale Rubis

Lady Arpels Ballerine Musicale Émeraude

Lady Arpels Ballerine Musicale Diamant

Going beyond crafting dance-inspired jewellery&nbsp;and timepieces, Van Cleef &amp; Arpels throws its support behind advancing the choreographic arts. Ongoing since 2012, the Maison&rsquo;s partnership with French dancer and choreographer Benjamin Millepied and his L.A. Dance Project Company has brought forth a series of powerful, emotive works, and in 2020 the Maison created Dance Reflections by Van Cleef &amp; Arpels, to support dance companies and institutions and broaden the reach of contemporary works. The programme currently has commitments in France (such as with Festival d&rsquo;Automne &agrave; Paris, and Th&eacute;&acirc;tre de la Ville and Chaillot &mdash; Th&eacute;&acirc;tre National de la Danse), Italy (with Romaeuropa Festival and Acad&eacute;mie de France in Rome &mdash; Villa M&eacute;dicis) and the UK (with Sadler&rsquo;s Wells and the Royal Opera House), and it has plans to extend its range of partnerships this year to other regions, such as the US, Middle East and Asia-Pacific region.

Beauty in Motion: Van Cleef & Arpels and the World of Dance

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