Pink & Bows - Jewelry

High, Fine, Costume Jewelry, & A Watch

Jun 09, 2026

Jewelry fascinates me.

Not all of it, but a LOT of it does. Especially the stuff that sparkles. I like it so much that you’ll never catch me wearing any because I find myself just a little too distracted by it. But boy do I like seeing it on others.

Timepieces on the other hand, are the opposite. I hardly like any, but once in a while I come across something exquisite. Like the masterpiece above/below by Van Cleef & Arpels. I saw it a couple of years ago and I’m still impressed.

It works like this: on the hour, the petals of one of the flowers will open to reveal a gemstone. When the hour is also most up, the petal closes and then two flowers now open. And so on and so on. In this way, you tell the time by counting the number of open flowers, and then the minutes are indicated in a neat little window on the side of the case (not pictured here). Genius! It’s just so cool that one, it looks more like jewelry than a watch, and two, that it gives you these amusing little shows throughout the day! Oh, how I’d love something like this. I’d play with it too much, though, and never get anything done. 😬 I’m not exaggerating, by the way.

If you have a minute, click here to watch Van Cleef’s own YouTube clip showing the piece in action.