Through LINE

After unveiling the new Hermès Cut timepiece in Geneva earlier this year, the French house expanded on its primal inspirations courtesy of a raw, unhewn Greek island.

- GORDON NG

The marble-cutting workshop in Tinos-graced on the wrist by the new Hermès Cut timepiece. The watch is the house's first sports model for women equipped with an in-house automatic movement..

When I first interviewed Philippe Delhotal, the creative director of Hermès Horloger, on the brand's newest watch, I was stymied by his insistence on the words 'cut' and 'shape.

To begin with, the watch in question is named the Hermès Cut. It takes its name from two neat notches sliced at the sides, which are finished with a contrasting mirror polish to the rest of the case's brushed satin.

And in talking about the Cut, both the brand and Delhotal keep referencing its shape. It is neither a round watch, nor is it square or rectangular.

It seemed, at the time, like simple ideas behind what is meant to be the French luxury house's new signature sports timepiece for women. It is the first women's model at the brand to be fitted with an automatic mechanical movement produced inhouse and dispenses with any house references to equestrianism or leather. In essence, the design is meant to bring its women's offering up to par with the horological ambitions of the brand.

For a creation so ambitiously positioned, would mere 'cut' and 'shape' suffice? The sense of an answer came when the brand flew journalists and watch influencers from around the world to a tiny island in Greece called Tinos for an adventure dubbed Shapes of Time. Part of the Cyclades archipelago, Tinos is a sleepy haven set in a primal environment: a never-ending spread of terraced hills, upon which are buttressed small villages and a nascent tourist industry, against an endless backdrop of sun and sea.

The miracle of Tinos is a natural resource that has been cherished, worked and mastered since antiquity: marble. Nearly every touch of civilisation and settlement here features marble.