The Art Of Time

At Watches and Wonders, Van Cleef & Arpels revealed a dazzling display of timepieces rich in artistry. Nicolas Bos, President & CEO of the storied maison, details what sets it apart

Time waits for no one, it is true, but the artisans at Van Cleef & Arpels are able to capture it, shaping it to their will by marrying masterful watchmaking to jewellery savoir-faire and crafting a unique vision of timekeeping.

This year’s Watches and Wonders was the latest invitation for Van Cleef & Arpels to showcase its artistry, but also one for the maison to “make sure that we are present in the world and environment of watchmaking,” says Nicolas Bos, President & CEO of Van Cleef & Arpels, evidently aware that it’s jewellery for which the maison is more commonly known.

“This exposure is particularly important for an approach like ours, which is quite specific, and was rather unique a few years ago: very feminine, very narrative, very jewelled. So, quite unusual in a world that was mostly technical and masculine.”

It was far more than a few years ago that Van Cleef & Arpels crafted its first timepiece, more than a century in fact, with chatelaines and pocket watches appearing in collections from the maison’s very foundation in 1906.

The unique approach Bos speaks of positions Van Cleef & Arpels at a point where jewellery and watchmaking traditions combine. Is there a particular timepiece that he feels best characterises this approach? “The Lady Féerie Or Rose is a good example,” states Bos of a watch that depicts an artful fairy pointing out the minutes with her magic wand “You see the jewellery expertise with a fullpaved rose gold case, the plique-à-jour enamel on the fairy’s wings, creating a unique shade of pink, and the engraved mother-of-pearl background. And you see the watchmaking know-how via the self-winding mechanism, jumping hours, and retrograde minutes.”

Van Cleef’s desire to craft the unique has made for some of the most notable creations in the history of timepieces. Secret watches account for one such style, for which the dial is hidden until discretely revealed.

Van Cleef & Arpels has made secret watches since the 1920s, most famously in the form of the Ludo bracelet, created in 1934 and named on account of Ludo being the nickname of the maison’s co-founder, Louis Arpels. At this year’s Watches and Wonders, three new interpretations of this classic timepiece were unveiled. Two combinations of materials — rose gold with either diamonds or pink sapphires — decorate a new size of watch, its dial revealed in guilloché white mother-of-pearl, while a third iteration has been crafted in homage to the 1941 Ludo Hexagone Macaron secret watch, for which its dial is hidden behind a motif adorned with Mystery Set emeralds, the maison’s prized and patented technique. The Ludo’s “brick-pattern meshwork bracelet imitates a finely woven fabric,” outlines Bos of the couture-like technique used. “The mesh links are assembled by hand, one by one, to offer optimal articulation and flexibility.”

Elsewhere, six new jewellery secret watches have been added to the Perlée collection, each with a different precious or ornamental stone, the likes of rubies and sapphires, rose quartz and chalcedony. Designed to be worn as long necklaces, their inspiration resides in 17th-century pocket watches.

The Mystery Set, introduced in 1933, allows for precious stones to be set with no attachment visible. So complex is the technique, that in the Van Cleef & Arpels’ workshop only a few master jewellers hold its know-how. “Innovation has always nurtured Van Cleef & Arpels’ creativity. Our quest for technical excellence gives us higher chances of successfully narrating our stories,” says Bos. “Furthermore, the maison is constantly striving to improve the way its pieces are made. For instance, the Mystery Set has been perfected and enriched, giving birth to the Navette Mystery Set [using marquise-cut stones to create a 3D effect] and the Vitrail Mystery Set [which conceals the mounting on both sides of a creation].

“The goal is always to respect our traditions while introducing a contemporary approach to the fields of jewellery and watchmaking.”

Respecting traditions brings us to the field of automaton, a moving mechanical device and a domain in which Van Cleef & Arpels’ has excelled since its founding, creating a series of what it terms Extraordinary Objects following several years of research and development. This year’s Watches and Wonders saw three more of these handcrafted creations brought to life, building on what Bos believes is a “global interest in traditional watchmaking and the mechanical arts. In our increasingly digital world we remain very sensitive to masterpieces crafted by artisans, and to the genuine emotions that they convey.”

Standing 50cm high, the new Planétarium automaton depicts six planets and the Moon, all fashioned from a combination of precious and ornamental stones, and each – thanks to an ingenious, highly complex mechanical movement – set to complete an orbit at their genuine speed of rotation: 88 days for Mercury, 224 days for Venus, 365 days for the Earth, 687 days for Mars, 11.86 years for Jupiter, and 29.5 years for Saturn. The hours, meanwhile, are indicated by a shooting star clad in gold, diamonds, Mystery Set-sapphires and emeralds, which appears from a small door to circle the dial. “The Planétarium automaton regroups a variety of crafts and inspires a dual emotion, between immersion in the universe and the beauty of craftsmanship,” enthuses Bos. In many creative industries, traditional crafts are dying out without interest from the next generation. Not so at Van Cleef & Arpels. “We are a living heritage company with a long-standing commitment to the transmission of know-how,” outlines Bos. “Thus, we contribute to the preservation of French jewellery savoir-faire, which has shone throughout the world for several centuries. We make sure that the training of the younger generation is at the heart of our métiers and workshops. We welcome people on apprenticeships, who will learn alongside experienced people, working in pairs.

“That is also why we created the de Mains en Mains (from Hands to Hands) initiative in 2021, targeting secondary school students and the general public to offer them a chance to dive into the world of jewellery and gain hands-on experience.”

Through such initiatives, Van Cleef & Arpels’ poetic take on time will continue to dance through the decades.

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INTERVIEW: LUCY ALLEN

ADDITIONAL WORDS: JOHN THATCHER

Despite the richly choreographed, high-octane action sequences that announce — with a bang — the opening of Amazon Prime’s spy series Citadel, it takes Priyanka Chopra Jonas all of a few seconds to steal the screen, walking into shot dressed to thrill (and, as it happens, kill) like a smouldering screen siren throwback to Hollywood’s golden age.

In her role as Citadel agent Nadia Sinh, she’s joined by Richard Madden’s character, Mason Kane, the ass-kicking cohorts setting about their bruising business as equal partners on screen and, more importantly, off. A fact that Chopra Jonas is keen to acknowledge. “I’ve been working in the entertainment industry for 22 years now, and I’ve done almost 70 features and two TV shows. But Citadel is the first time in my career that I have had pay parity with my male co-actor. And I wonder, did that happen because I had a contract with one of the very few female decision makers in Hollywood? Would it have been a different conversation if a woman didn’t make that decision? I’ve done many movies in which I’ve been co-lead, but the ease with which Amazon Studios said, ‘That’s what you deserve. That’s just fair.’ And I was like, ‘You’re right, it is fair!’ It’s the first time I’ve heard that.”

It’s a train of thought she’s not going to jump from. “There are so many challenges that women face in the entertainment industry — I’m laughing about this, but it’s kind of nuts — putting in the same amount of time, making the same investment and working just as hard but getting paid much less. Why is there a difference if they’re playing the same parts? But that wasn’t even a conversation until women had representation in positions like Jen’s [Jennifer Salke, Head of Amazon Studios]. Having women in front of the camera, behind the camera,in high positions. That’s when change happens. That’s when someone says, ‘That’s not right. They’re co-leads, they should be paid the same and should be treated the same.’

One of the few female studio heads, Citadel was Salke’s grand idea and it’s a ground-breaking one. A ‘mothership’ series that has several native language satellite series set across the globe — the Italian Alps, India, Spain and Mexico — each feeding into the main show. “It’s truly ambitious and one of its kind,” says Chopra Jonas. “The show is predominantly in the English language, but as a global series our characters travel the world and feature in stories scripted by native writers. Italians write the Italian show, people who speak Hindi write the Hindi show — but their stories connect with ours. That has never happened in entertainment. And she [Salke] just called them [directors, the Russo brothers] and was like, ‘OK, I want to create this global franchise of completely original IP in multiple countries at the same time.’ Not ambitious at all! But they were up for the challenge.”

Chopra Jonas was also up for the challenge, which proved particularly gruelling on her body. “It took a lot of training, five days a week for one and a half years. It’s difficult to stay disciplined. That was really hard. Richard [Madden] and I both used to wake up at four o’clock in the morning and train before we even started filming.”

For some of the most physical stunts, Chopra Jonas was replaced with a stunt double, but she was determined that they would also act. “I did a bunch of action Bollywood movies back in the day and used to train with the stunt team. But I kind of learned to trust my body to do my stunts because I wanted to look as good as the boys. When I see stunt doubles that come in and just do the fight, they don’t think like the character would. So if I get thrown across the table and I land, how would a stunt double turn around and look? The body changes if you’re scared, the body changes if you’re angry, the body language changes depending on what you’re thinking. So now I work very closely with my stunt doubles. I usually do most of my stuff first so that they can see how my character reacts to being punched. I’ve just trained myself that way where I have to have control of my reactions if someone else is doing something for me.

I’m very protective of my characters!”

Chopra Jonas describes her character in Citadel as different to any other she has played. “She’s the toughest one in the room. She’s always the one who’s a leader, taking the decisions, making sure everyone gets home safe. And then you see her vulnerabilities when she’s alone. And I felt the burden of her character was just so much fun for me to chew on. As long as I’ve been working in America, I have sought work that helps me showcase my diversity, and Nadia really gave me an opportunity to showcase a character that has depth, is strong, but also vulnerable. She’s such a prism of so many feelings and thoughts.”

A driven character who shows her vulnerability when alone, there are obvious parallels between Nadia Sinh and the woman who portrays her. “I have been told many things which are very difficult to hear. And in my job the pressure is so intense that you can’t really show the chinks in your armour,” reveals Chopra Jonas. “Yesterday, somebody told me that I wasn’t sample size, and I was hurt and cried to my husband and my team about the situation. Why is the fact that I’m not sample size considered a problem? I’ve also had times where I may have said something and it’s been misconstrued, and you see people saying the meanest and the nastiest things, not just about me, but about my child, about my family members. And I think sometimes people forget that you’re even human. Such pressures are inexplicable. I can’t explain to you how it feels when you’re sitting down on your couch and you just feel the world coming at you because people have forgotten that you’re human.”

So how does she cope? “What you have to do, is surround yourself with people who love you. Surround yourself with people who care about you, people who want to see you smile, people who want to see you enriched. I can count those people on my hands. But I know when I’m feeling like that, or I’m made to feel like that, I don’t need to wake up still feeling like that. Your family and friends are your real wealth. Your real strength.

I think that’s what gives me a sense of balance and sanity. Otherwise, it’s very difficult to survive in this extremely mean, opinionated world sometimes.”

Born in 1982 to military physician parents, Chopra Jonas was catapulted to fame after winning 2000’s Miss World title. Film offers came flooding in, paving the way for a successful Bollywood career, Hollywood hits, and latterly the launch of her own production company. “I was turning 30, and my mom sat me down and said, ‘You’re too old for the business, I think.’ And I said, ‘What do you know about the business, you’re a doctor?’ She was like, ‘I hear that in the movie business, the guys want to work with younger girls. So once you’re 30, you’re going to have to have another avenue for revenue.’ And at the ripe old age of 30 [laughs], she put a seed in my head.

“It was my mother who named my company Purple Pebble, because purple is the colour of royalty in India, and she thinks I’m a queen. And ‘pebble’ because we’re a small company and we wanted to be the shoulders for other people.”

Chopra Jonas now has a first-look deal with Amazon, giving the streaming giant first rights to any creative content she makes. “Jen [Salke] had this unbelievable faith in the ideas that I discussed with her and we’re now developing so many shows together, which puts females front and centre, both on screen and in writers’ rooms. And diverse women from around the world because, to me, diversity is global.”

Creating an environment in which women can excel is of paramount importance.

“For such a long time, there have been so few opportunities for women. If you look at women in most professions, you’ll see fewer women in higher positions. And as soon as a woman gains a position of power, there’s so much pressure on her to be the smartest in the room, or to have the wittiest answer, because she’s the only one there. So I think every time a woman takes a step forward, she should turn around and pull someone else up with her.

“What we’re talking about is being able to have equal opportunity, to be able to have the doors open for us the way they did for guys. In my industry, it gives me so much joy to see so much female-onfemale support. I’m working with so many female actors who didn’t have leading roles written for them and decided to become producers or writers and do it themselves. There is empowerment, and now we are partnering together and making movies together.

“Don’t worry about looking for precedent in what our voices are demanding right now, in the change that our voices are demanding. We can’t look for a precedent because there isn’t one. Our generation will set the precedent for the next generation of girls.”

WORDS: MELISSA TWIGG

Alexi Lubomirski is not easily rattled. The photographer has spent his two-decade career shooting celebrities like Julia Roberts and Gwyneth Paltrow –but even his relaxed demeanour sounds like it was shaken by the production that is a royal wedding.

As official photographer for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s marriage in 2018, he was charged with getting not only portraits of the couple but a group photograph with the extended family, the bridesmaids and pageboys.

It was one of the most stressful moments of his career, not least because courtiers had warned him in advance that Prince Philip wasn’t a fan of having his picture taken; equally, he had to corral ten under10s into looking at the camera.

With the children proving to be a handful, Lubomirski, 47, eventually went up to the late Queen and promised he wouldn’t be more than five minutes; she smiled and said, “I’m not the one you need to worry about.”

In the end, he got the shot by asking, “Who likes Smarties?” to the resounding response of “Me”.

Luckily, Lubomirski has the natural confidence and easy charm of someone who has lived an unusually glamorous life. In fact, if a novelist created a character like him, a good editor would likely suggest they tone it down.

Born to a British-Peruvian mother and a French-Polish father, he grew up between Botswana and Paris and went to an English boarding school. Next up, New York, where he still lives and where he launched a fashion photography career under Mario Testino before becoming the portraittaker of choice for major celebrities and royalty. Oh, and his full title, inherited through his father, is His Serene Highness Prince Alexi Lubomirski.

Phew. Although good looks and a Mills & Boon backstory aren’t quite enough to sustain a two and a half decade career — and part of his success comes down to intuitively knowing what his subjects need from him.

“Some girls want to flirt with you, some guys want to flirt with you; some guys want to show you that they’re alpha on the set,” he says, over Zoom from his house in upstate New York.

“The big trick is to get them to forget they are in front of a camera by throwing a few jokes in, and catching a tiny moment when they’re disarmed.”

Mega-stars are rarely the ones to arrive with an entourage or demand special treatment. Despite this, the only other occasion he was rattled was when he photographed Julia Roberts for the first time.

“I had to bring a couple of T-shirts as I sweated right through them. Although, really, she creates this fantastic familial feeling on set — and all you have to do is say something that makes her laugh and you’ve got the shot.”

Lubomirski has gone on to work with Roberts numerous times for magazines including Elle , Marie Claire and Harper’s Bazaar — and allegedly, Meghan Markle hired him after seeing one of these shoots.

Another trick is to give his A-listers a character. On a Harper’s Bazaar shoot with Kate Winslet, he asked her to imagine she was waiting in a Parisian apartment for her lover, who was late; as Winslet leaned against the mantlepiece and turned her face into a mixture of excited, anxious and seductive, he felt chills run up his arms.

“My assistant had to nudge me to take the photograph because I was so in awe of what she was doing.”

Generally, British actors win in the fun stakes, and one of his favourite people to work with is Ewan McGregor, who is as happy to hop around on set in bunny ears as he is to pose in a suit.

“I desperately miss how good British people are at laughing at themselves,” he says. “You quickly learn in America not to take the piss out of other people — whereas in Britain it’s a sign of rapport.”

Lubomirski speaks with an English accent and that, mixed with his royal connections and his successful career in what he describes as “clean-slate” America, made him the ideal choice for the status-conscious Duke and Duchess of Sussex (he took their engagement photos, their wedding pictures and their first family-of-four Christmas card).

Before collaborating with big-name subjects, Lubomirski finds points in common to chat about on set. With Harry, Botswana was the obvious choice — but it sounds like the Duke of Sussex was more interested in honing his burgeoning photographic skills.

In fact, the Princess of Wales appears to have some competition on her hands. “Harry is really interested in photography,” says Lubomirski.

“He takes a lot of great black and white pictures. I talked to him about different apps to use to create the perfect picture. I was definitely giving him ideas.”

Watch out fellow celebrity photographer Brooklyn Beckham, with his reportage of elephants.

The prince-on-prince professional relationship began on the grounds of Windsor Castle in late 2017 when Lubomirski shot the all-important engagement images that would act as Meghan’s royal coming-out.

“Every time they looked at each other I almost felt awkward. I kept thinking, ‘This is so intimate, should I even be here for this?’ Being around them was very intoxicating.’’

Opening page: Alexi Lubomirski

Previous pages, clockwise from bottom left: Victoria Beckham; Jennifer Aniston; Jessica Chastain

These pages: Julia Roberts

While the rest of the press pack was kept at arm’s length, he spent hours with them. “I’m cheesy and I love taking pictures of people in love.”

I ask if being a prince changed the dynamic between himself and the royal couple and Lubomirski laughs and says, “No”, seven times in a row. “It’s not like there’s a secret handshake between princes. We’re not masons.”

Although Harry and Meghan aren’t his only British royal connections.

In 2018, Lubomirski photographed Charles and Camilla in Clarence House for Vanity Fair . Mostly, they talked about lavender — how to grow it, the different varieties and the soothing effects of it — but alongside this, Lubomirski noticed how happy the now King and Queen seemed in each other’s company.

“They laughed and turned to each other all the time, like boyfriend and girlfriend. You would never have thought they had been together so long.”

Lubomirski should know — he has been married for well over a decade to his Cuban-Italian wife Giada, with whom he has two sons.

In fact, the one downside of being a good-looking straight prince in the world of fashion photography is that absolutely everyone assumes you are going to be unfaithful.

“People congratulated me on getting married but told me I’d probably cheat on my wife — which I absolutely haven’t,” he insists. “I always mention her in the first few minutes of a shoot so nobody gets the wrong idea.”

A relief for Giada, I would imagine, given how many of the world’s great beauties he has worked with.

Many of them are now the subjects of his new book, The Sittings (2003-2023) , a collection of 113 portraits that include Julia Roberts, Kate Winslet, Jennifer Aniston and of course the royals. The publication was accompanied by an exhibition at the ArtSpace in Claridge’s last month, with the proceeds donated to humanitarian charity Concern Worldwide.

Notably, most of the celebrities in his book are smiling — which is unusual in the world of high-end photography.

“In the end, the best compliment is when someone’s mum says it’s a nice picture because mothers want their children to look happy — but also like themselves.”

Spoken like a true prince charming.

The stylistic vocabulary of Karl Lagerfeld is the subject of the Met’s latest blockbuster exhibition

It was said that Karl Lagerfeld despised sentimentality so much that he loathed talking about the past in press interviews, despite a near 70-year career liberally peppered with extraordinary moments. It made him diligent in his desire to avoid museum retrospectives of his work, and insistent that he be spared the usual memorial in the event of his passing, which was announced in the morning of February 19, 2019.

He was, however, deemed “a giant among men” by Vogue ’s Anna Wintour, a fashion colossus nicknamed ‘Kaiser’, whose death was never likely to pass without major recognition of his countless achievements across the houses of Chanel, Fendi and Chloé, alongside his eponymous label. “What Warhol was to art, he was to fashion; he is irreplaceable,” said Claudia Schiffer.

In June 2019, 2,500 guests were invited to the glass-domed Grand Palais in Paris, home to so many of his spectacular Chanel shows, to celebrate his life at an event orchestrated by Canadian opera director Robert Carsen, who created a set featuring 56 largerthan-life images of Lagerfeld, a bar, a Steinway piano, and a rotating stage on which the likes of Tilda Swinton and Pharrell Williams performed and numerous anecdotes were read aloud.

Now it’s the turn of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art to pay homage to one of fashion’s most prolific figures, devoting The Costume Institute’s spring 2023 exhibition to his work. Running until July 16, Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty focuses on the designer’s stylistic vocabulary, as expressed through lines — aesthetic themes that appear time and again — in his fashions from the 1950s to his final collection in 2019.

“Karl Lagerfeld was one of the most captivating, prolific, and recognisable forces in fashion and culture, known as much for his extraordinary designs and tireless creative output as for his legendary persona,” says Max Hollein, Marina Kellen French Director of The Met. “This immersive exhibition unpacks his singular artistic practise, inviting the public to experience an essential part of Lagerfeld’s boundless imagination and passion for innovation.”

Born in Hamburg, northern Germany, to cultured, complicated parents,

Lagerfeld had somewhat of a gilded childhood (he had his own valet from the age of four), and it wasn’t long before his many idiosyncrasies showed. “As a child, I wanted Austrian lederhosen,” he said. “I always wanted to be different from other people. I hated children. I was born with a pad of paper in my hand. I was looking at images before I could read.”

His talent for fashion was first recognised in 1954, when his design for a woollen coat, with a high neckline and plunging V-shaped opening in the back, won a prize he would share with Yves Saint Laurent, who designed a dress for the event. One of the judges happened to be a certain Pierre Balmain, who offered Lagerfeld the post of junior assistant.

But it swiftly became apparent that Lagerfeld was too big a talent — and character — to fit under anyone’s wing.

If Chloé was where the foundations for his stellar career were firmly set, it was Chanel where it was built, taking over at a house still looking to fill the void left by the death of Coco Chanel in 1971. He joined in 1983, and immediately transformed the brand's fortunes, first via cheeky reinterpretations of Coco’s classic codes — including a pair of tweed hotpants — and then kickstarting logomania by printing the interlocked ‘CC’ on all manner of garb and accessories.

It set Chanel on an upward trajectory it’s yet to veer from, and earned Lagerfeld a lifetime contract, a rare bond in the fleeting nature of the fashion world.

His work for Chanel is, of course, a major component of The Costume Institute’s exhibition. “The exhibition explores Lagerfeld’s complex working methodology, tracing the evolution of his fashions from the two dimensional to the three dimensional. The fluid lines of his sketches found expression in recurring aesthetic themes in his fashions, uniting his designs for Balmain, Patou, Chloé, Fendi, Chanel, and his eponymous label, Karl Lagerfeld, creating a diverse and prolific body of work unparalleled in the history of fashion,” says Andrew Bolton, Wendy Yu Curator in Charge, The Costume Institute. Drawing on the theory of art and aesthetics expressed by William

Hogarth as the "line of beauty,” the exhibition is anchored by two lines: the ‘straight line’ and the ‘serpentine line,’ which delineate, respectively, Lagerfeld’s modernist and historicist tendencies. These lines explore different stylistic representations of themes that the designer returned to again and again, spreading in a rhizomelike configuration with intersecting moments — or ‘explosions’ — that

Previous pages, clockwise from top left: runway image of ensemble, Chanel fall/winter 1986-87; runway image of 'Aurélien' dress, Chloé spring/summer 1983; sketch of dress, Chanel spring/summer 1995 haute couture; sketch of 'Aurélien' dress, Chloé spring/summer 1983. Photo by Paul van Riel/ANP/Redux. All images courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

These pages, clockwise from left: sketch of ensemble, Chanel spring/ summer 2019; runway image of ensemble, Chanel spring/summer 2019; Karl Lagerfeld portrait image, by Annie Leibovitz/ Vogue/Trunk Archive. All images courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art exemplify points of convergence. The exhibition rounds off with the ‘satirical line,’ a section that focuses on Lagerfeld’s ironic, playful, and whimsical predilections expressed through visual puns that reflect the designer’s razor-sharp wit.

In all, approximately 150 garments are on view, spanning Lagerfeld’s entire career. Whether he would have approved of such a grand retrospective is another matter.