Raising The Stakes

Hermès takes on two traditional high complications with flying results

- Alvin Wong

Let’s play a quick round of word association. When we say Hermès, what’s the first object that comes to mind? Bags? Scarves? Or, more specifically, a Birkin or Kelly? Chances are, ‘traditional high-end complications’ would have been a far reach for most – even, dare we say, well-learned watch connoisseurs.

That is not to say that Hermès doesn’t make technically sophisticated watches. It does – and extremely well, too. Creations like the Time Suspended, which features a built-in mechanical memory system that won Best Men’s Watch at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Geneve (GPHG) in 2011, and the more recent Arceau L’heure de la lune, a moonphase watch that uses mobile counters for the time and date, which move around the ‘moons’, that won the Calendar and Astronomy Watch prize at GPHG 2019, are proof that Hermès is more than capable of rolling out ingenious mechanical creations.