The theme for the Van Cleef & Arpels watches for SIHH 2008 was "Jewellery timepieces and poetic complications" and a couple pieces were made for men.  I'm not sure if I like the term "poetic complications" because it is a little feminine sounding   Either way, let's go straight to the watches because I'm pretty sure many of the hard core PuristS are probably scratching their heads asking themselves why are we covering Van Cleef & Arpels this year since their watches are typically jewellery watches.

The "Midnight in Paris" is available in a 41mm pink gold and 42mm case white gold case with diamond bezel as shown in the below picture.  The frosted blue quartz dial consists of a rotating dark blue aventurine disc which depicts a map of the stars, which are set in diamonds, as if one is looking up above in the Paris sky.  This disc rotates during the 365 day cycle of the year as it appears from that movement in Paris. 

Diamond bezel Midnight in Paris

Midnight in Paris also features a calendar on the back with meteorite stone at the outer circumference of the movement and a rear hunter lid.  I'm not sure which base movement the Midnight in Paris uses but it definitely isn't an in-house Van Cleef & Arpels' movement.  I really don't see what the point of having the calendar on the back is but guess Van Cleef wants the owner to be able to remember the placement of the stars on any given date such as a birthday or anniversary.  Adjust the date with the ratchet type device on the back and turn the star disc manually to coincide with whichever date you desire so you can see how the star placement looks like from the Paris sky.  In my opinion, this is a pointless complication especially when most people do not reside in Paris.

Hunter lid caseback of the Midnight in Paris

Below are a couple more watches using the same rotating disc concept but these are the women versions.