For ten years now, Hermès have been combining their French DNA with Swiss watchmaking, and their watches include complications that provide an alternative, ironic depiction of time. The Hermès vision is not about performance and the absolute control of time, but rather a more playful view of this fourth dimension. In 2011, Arceau Le temps…
The Arceau watch by Hermès was designed almost 40 years ago, by Henri d’Origny in 1978, but looks contemporary still today. The Hermès Arceau Très Grand Modèle is distinctive for its asymmetric lugs that recall a stirrup, and above all for the lovely sloping font which according to the brand evokes a galloping horse. The watch…
The Slim d’Hermès Manufacture extends the Slim range introduced by Hermès in 2015. It is a 39.5 mm watch for women, with a whole range of strap colours, and smooth or diamond-set bezel. In the version shown, the watch has an opaline dial, and a bezel set with 66 diamonds. The movement is the H1950…
Lots of pocket watches this year. Perhaps Hermès know something that other people don’t about this sector of the market? Are lots of people going to be going around with fobs and chains? Are waistcoats also going to be coming back? In actual fact theSlim d’Hermès Pocket Panthère isn’t going to change the situation all…
Robert Dallet (1923-painted big cats and made many scarf designs for Hermès in the 19980s. In January this year, Hermès was involved in the foundation of the Robert Dallet Initiative for Wild Cat Conservation, which operates with Panthera to help protect these endangered species. Dallet first saw a tiger in a Paris zoo, and this…
Usually you see vintage pocket watches hanging in watch repair and antique shops. Before 1910, all watches were pocket watches: wristwatches were made popular by soldiers in the First World War. Today, many brands still have a few pocket watches in their collection, such as this piece by Hermès, Pocket Plein Cuir. It combines a…
The three watches in the Arceau Pocket La Promenade de Platon by Hermès are all one-off pieces, made using three techniques: enamel, engraving, and three-dimensional engraving with added layers of gold. They are based on a scarf design by Annie Faivre on this year’s theme “Nature at full gallop.” The subject is philosopher Plato riding…
It seems that Hermès is doing everything right. Its watches incorporate its exquisite leather craftsmanship. The brand gives its own names to its mechanical movements, justifiably, because it owns a 25% share of movement manufacturer Vaucher. It uses its vast design resources to create some interesting case and dial designs. And it is using its…
At Baselworld, Philippe Delhotal, Creative Director of La Montre Hermès, said that 2016 is all about the consolidation of the Slim collection launched commercially in 2015. The Slim d’Hermès Email grand feu is a development of the Slim d’Hermès, and it is a 100-piece limited edition designed for collectors. Its dial design has the same…
I am of the opinion that a decorated object is a crafts piece if you look at it and think “How did he or she do that?” and it’s a work of art if you think “Why did he do that?” This is what sets apart a piece, say, of contemporary ceramics, very often all…
The Slim d’Hermès project began in 2012 and it represents a quest on the part of La Montre d’Hermès to pare a watch down to the essentials. Designed by creative director Philippe Delhotal, all the Slim watches feature a new typeface by Philippe Apeloig, a designer who had already worked for Hermès but who knew…
Company profile: Someone who loves watches may be forgiven for paying less attention to a brand like Hermès that makes principally leather goods, perfumery and fashion garments. But in actual fact, Hermès makes beautiful watches, proving that quality in watchmaking is absolutely possible for a horizontally-diversified brand of this type – as is the case…
At Baselworld 2015 I was expecting from Hermès another deliciously ironic piece such as last year’s L’Heure Masquée, but the brand seems to have decided that they have reached the end of the line of those quirky masterpieces and have moved in another direction. I was pleasantly surprised. Simplicity and a new typeface The major launch…
Although 16 watch brands are thinking mostly about the approaching Geneva watch show SIHH that begins in five days’ time, many others are looking forward to Valentine’s Day and suggesting watches that would be good gifts for the woman you love. Hermès, for example, presents the new Arceau Petite Lune, with an in-house manufacture movement…
This article on the best fashion watches looks at what could be considered as a form of brand extension: as a fashion brand grows, the name spreads from garments to kidswear, accessories, perfumes, cosmetics, and watches. Often the watches are more about style than content, and most have quartz movements. But there is an interesting…
While the Hermès Dressage L’heure masquée is an ingenious watch with an original movement designed to express an unusual concept of time, the Arceau Temari by Hermès is a jewellery watch in which the motif on the dial is the principal feature. Temari is a Japanese word meaning “hand ball.” They were made from remnants…
L’Heure Masquée by Hermès. Hermès is a brand best known for its scarves and leather goods, but its watches are also superb, and a fine expression of the maison’s distinctively ironic touch, perhaps less easy to discern in its fashion products. Now an integrated watch manufacture – in other words, most of the operations required…