Its dream-like dial displays the hours with 12 animated corollas that open and close at the top of the hour. The hours are read simply by counting the number of corollas that blossom. But more than that, the feat lies in its highly naturalistic portrayal whereby the order in which the flowers open and close from hour to hour appears to be at random. It is based on a cycle of three different sequences, allowing the flowers that bloom at, for instance, 7p.m. today to differ from those that will open at the same time tomorrow. Additionally, the motion of the flowers is also highly nuanced — they close slowly but burst open quickly. The minutes, on the other hand, are read on a linear retrograde display through a sapphire window on the caseband.

The mechanism responsible for this magical sleight of hand was developed completely in-house. It is built on top and around a small automatic base movement with a full, circular gold rotor. The display module consists of four hour program wheels, each with a different number of teeth to achieve the seemingly randomized pattern. Each program wheel governs the motion of three flowers, themselves made up of five tiny pinions — one for each petal — with a center pinion controlled by a spring-loaded rack. An additional barrel and gear train controlled by a centrifugal governor was installed on the periphery of the base movement to regulate the speed at which the flowers open and close.

Incredibly, all of this horological firepower was mercilessly buried beneath a bejeweled garden that displays an exquisite array of métiers d’arts. Marrying the sibling arts of jewelry making and watchmaking is one thing, but Van Cleef & Arpels have integrated them in a manner that exists almost nowhere else. Thus, it has earned our vote for the best ladies’ watch, by a mile.