THE DESTRIER’S SILHOUETTE
The Parisian house’s emblematic animal becomes an elusive shadow, a silhouette in motion, blended with precious weaving, galloping unfettered across the dial of two new timepieces unveiled as limited editions.
A bona fide explorer, Hermès Horloger travels across the globe on a quest to discover occasionally uncharted, occasionally overlooked, but frequently incomparable arts, which it packs in its trunks then subsequently center stages on its watch dials. The Slim model is ideally suited to this, an authentic miniature blank canvas on which the Parisian firm loves letting its creative streak roam free. The firm brought back a traditional weaving technique from Asia to adorn the Slim d’Hermès Cheval Ikat duo, each revealed as a 36-piece limited edition.
One is luminous like the sun, with its light shades enhanced with the warmth of rose gold, whilst the other tends to suggest a night-time sky illuminated by a ribbon of stars lulled by the silvery glints of white gold. Hermès’ emblematic animal rides freely across the white- or blue-varnished dial. Its elegant silhouette is composed of a thousand gold threads applied using the dyeing and weaving technique known as ikat, a fabric art native to Indonesia (where its name means “to bond, to knot”) and widespread in Asia. This meticulous assembly work creates a relief-style design which catches the light, here in peach color for the rose gold version and silvery for the white gold model.
Two baton-type hands which emerge from the horse’s body to display the hours and minutes are driven by the H1950 caliber. This extra-slim self-winding movement, which nestles in the 39.5 mm-diameter case, beats at a frequency of 21,600 vibrations an hour and delivers a power reserve of 42 hours.
This Slim d’Hermès Cheval Ikat duo is complemented by a black- or Chantilly-colored alligator strap.
Price: CHF28,000 (rose gold) – CHF33,000 (white gold) hermes.com
By Sharmila Bertin