The French house of Hermès began creating watches as early as 1912, but it was only in 1978 that the house would launch a signature design of its own. That design is the Arceau, created by the brand’s prolific artistic director Henri d’Origny. A round watch in a sense, but with a witty twist: the Arceau name translates to and takes its inspirations from the shapes of stirrups from the house’s favoured equestrian world. The circular case is framed by asymmetrical lugs, and the collection is immediately recognisable by the curved numerals which are meant to evoke the gallop of a horse in movement. Think of it as horological classicism done in a distinctly Hermès way.
More than four decades on, and the Arceau has become an emblematic canvas for watchmaking at Hermès. The collection is regularly transformed to house some of the brand’s most playful and unusual creative experiments. There are the poetic complications, like Le Temps Suspendu which ‘freezes’ the time display at the push of a button, and Le Temps Voyageur which beautifully reimagines displaying different time zones. These are often some of Hermès’ best examples of horological ingenuity.
But one other way that the Arceau typifies the obsessive craftsmanship at the heart of the house is its métiers d’art designs. The brand typically takes inspiration from its existing bounty of silk scarf designs. It’s a massive trove of material: there are over 2,000 designs since silk carrés were introduced at the house in 1937, and more than 75,000 distinct colours that have been created, logged and used in the silkscreen printing process.
This year, the brand has crafted on its Arceau timepiece a cheery reinterpretation of the Mon Premier Galop design by the Chinese-born artist Tong Ren. It’s an almost naïf depiction of a horse taking its first steps—hence the name. In its original shawl form, the design is printed on a cashmere-silk blend, with printed textures that evoke the artist’s fondness for traditional crafts like wicker baskets and woven straw hats.
Now as a watch, these ideas have been realised through a host of artistic crafts applied to the Arcea Mon Premier Galop’s dial. There is leather marquetry, in which different pieces of leather are cut to precise shapes and sizes in order to fit into the larger design as though pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. These pieces of leather are trimmed to just half a millimetre thick. There’s also silk threads in blue and gold shades, painstakingly arranged and set to complement the leather pieces. And to achieve the luminous blue and yellow of the sky and sun, layers of enamel are applied with a brush by hand to create the limpid colours that contrast against the grain and textures of leather and silk.
The level of artistic work almost outshines the preciousness of the watch case, which comes in 18-carat white gold and set on the bezel with 82 diamonds. The Arceau Mon Premier Galop adds one last touch of Hermès’ leather expertise: a Swift calfskin strap in a shade of zephyr blue to match the palette on the dial.
