Can time be captured? Hermès does not try to control it, but rather tames it and plays with it. On 10 October, the “Crafting Time” 2023 exhibition was unveiled at the Hermès Store at Dubai Mall. Artist Clément Vieille created the scenography to immerse the visitor into the heart of Hermès time. The exhibition continues the vibe of the Watches and Wonders Geneva scenography. The viewer freely navigates between suspended sculptures that organise space and endow it with rhythm. Like the Hermès designers and artisans, he explores composite materials and the most innovative forms: «tensegrity» structures held together only by the right spatial arrangement of elements in compression and tension, woven carbon fibre plates, mass-dyed materials… His sculptures thus explore all the potentialities of matter.
Through the paths offered, the visitor is plunged into a precise and dreamlike mechanism evoking the heart of a mechanical watch. Within this powerful, airy and luminous world, time is the very material from which the forms emerge. The new Hermès H08 thus celebrates the alliance of human craftmanship and the ingenuity of an artistic nature, capable of infinitely interpreting forms and textures.
To accompany the new Hermès H08 models presented at Watches and Wonders Geneva this year, the exhibition displays a wide range of Haute Horlogerie watches and exceptional pieces. These include : singular Hermès complications with the Arceau L’heure de la lune featuring new stone dials and the recent Arceau Le temps voyageur, both awarded at the GPHG; technically sophisticated models such as the Slim d’Hermès Squelette Lune; jewellery watches with the Faubourg Polka Joaillerie and the Kelly Haute Joaillerie playing with the Hermès signature features, while also shaking up established watchmaking conventions; exceptional pieces adorned using exclusive artistic crafts such as leather mosaic with the Slim d’Hermès La Panthère de Robert, miniature painting with the Arceau Plumes en fêtes and the Arceau Tourbillon Lift Les sentinelles combining horological expertise with delicate miniature painting to showcase Hermès’ unique creation and style.
Arceau L’heure de la lune
Arceau Le temps voyageur The Slim d’Hermès Squelette Lune mingles simplicity with informality and demanding details with the daring use of contrasting materials and stylistic crossovers. This model with its pure lines carved from ultra-light titanium is joining the Slim d’Hermès collection, created in 2015. The deep shades of the skeletonised dial, accentuated by its airy architecture and alternating matt and glossy finishes, express both the character and the refinement of this horological object. In keeping with the cosmic and dreamlike dimension of Hermès time, a likewise openworked double Moon completes this light and easily legible ensemble. Travelling in another dimension, cosmic and dreamlike. Setting foot on the moon and losing one’s sense of time and space. The Arceau L’heure de la lune watch offers a unique vision of Earth’s satellite with the simultaneous display of moon phases in both northern and southern hemispheres. Two mobile counters gravitate on a Mars or Black Sahara meteorite dial, revealing mother-of-pearl moons in step with an exclusive module, coupled with a Manufacture Hermès movement.
Slim d’Hermès Squelette Lune
Faubourg Polka Joaillerie The miniaturised Faubourg model presented in 2014 has inspired the quintessential design of the Faubourg Polka, a line exuding the inimitableelegance of a miniature. The case and bracelet have been entirely reworked in a resolutely contemporary and assertive style. The bracelet design features a new rhythm inspired by the design of the links, which are shaped like dots and lines and create the impression of punctuation. At the exact intersection between watchmaking and Haute Joaillerie, the Faubourg Polka Joaillerie watch calls upon the patiently acquired skills of the artisans who craft it. The Slim d’Hermès Squelette Lune mingles simplicity with informality and demanding details with the daring use of contrasting materials and stylistic crossovers. This model with its pure lines carved from ultralight titanium is joining the Slim d’Hermès collection, created in 2015. The deep shades of the skeletonised dial, accentuated by its gairy architecture and alternating matt and glossy finishes, express both the character and the refinement of this horological object. In keeping with the cosmic and dreamlike dimension of Hermès time, a likewise openworked double Moon completes this light and easily legible ensemble.
Kelly Haute Joaillerie
Created in 1975, the Kelly watch, whose padlock shaped case is inspired by that of the eponymous handbag, is presented in a new version offering a variety of wearability alternatives. The art of gem setting transforms this singularly feminine watch into a radiantly precious jewellery watch through a combination of demanding techniques and boundless creativity. Attired in gold and diamonds, Kelly Haute Joaillerie challenges the established order, wrapping a dazzling cuff around the wrist, worn as an elegant pendant on a gemset chain, or tied around the neck with a clochette and its leather cord-strap.
Slim d’Hermès La Panthère de Robert
Created in 2015, the Slim d’Hermès watch is all about essentials: a simplicity composed of thoroughness and balance. The distinctive, understated lines of its round case with angular lugs frame an in-house technique called “leather mosaic”. The “La Panthère de Robert” motif is created with 3,500 differentlycoloured 0.5 mm leather squares that the artisan places on the dial, according to the original pattern to be reproduced.
Arceau Plumes en fêtes
Framed by a 38 mm gemset white gold case, the stirrup-shaped geometry of the Arceau watch, designed by Henri d’Origny in 1978, provides a canvas for the delicate expertise of the dial-makers. The outline of the scene is placed on a mother-of-pearl dial and its contours are individually adjusted by hand to ensure their perfect definition.
A subtlepalette of colours – chosen to bring the scene to life – is then applied to the heart of this motif. Every tiny detail is hand-drawn with a brush, paying vibrant tribute to Nature and its beauty.
Arceau Lift Les Sentinelles
The Arceau Lift flying tourbillon watch is inspired by the historical premises of Hermès at 24, Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris. The double H topping the tourbillon carriage and the barrel bridge of the Arceau Lift reproduces one of the emblematic motifs featured in the interior design of the boutique. Arceau Lift represents an authentic technical feat driven by Calibre H1923, thus named in reference to the date when the elevator was installed in the boutique. Vividly displaying the excellence of this exceptional mechanism, the components of Calibre H1923 are indeed finished with the special care demanded by watchmaking traditions. The dial presents a combination of two skills: miniature enamel painting and cloisonné enamelling. The artisan reproduces the outlines of the motif on the enamelled dial. Enamel powders mixed with natural oils are applied using a very fine brush. The enamel artist traces the main outlines of the design, serving as a base for applying the gold wires that will mark out the zones to be enamelled. The gold wires are delicately hand-applied to the dial. The artisan then fills these previously created compartments with enamel of various colours, thereby creating the picturesque Les Sentinelles motif.
