Double time
A distinctive face, a lustworthy strap – and a reasonable(ish) price tag.
No wonder everyone wants Hermès’s latest watch, says John Arlidge
“We like to do things differently,” says Laurent
Dordet, the CEO of Hermès Horloger — the fashion
house’s watchmaking division — as he takes his seat in
the com pany’s blond-oak boardroom in the Swiss lake-
side town of Neuchâtel. “Not in an arrogant way but
because being different is who we are.” From day one
the “très correcte” French firm’s mantra has been to at
least match the quality of its competitors but to be as
different as possible in everything else. It’s why, for
instance, Hermès doesn’t make sunglasses. “Hermès
could not work out a way to do sunglasses with our own
language. So we said no,” Dordet says.
Hermès can be different with watches, however.
Indeed it breaks all the “rules” that most fancy brands
follow: stick to analogue, not digital; choose round
faces, not square; and charge as much as you dare.
Hermès has co-created one of the most desirable
digital watches on the planet. Many of its analoguewatches come in any shape except round. Perhaps most
remarkable of all, its models are good value in the
luxury watch world.
Take its £1,200 digital watch. Previously best known
for its analogue women’s watches — such as the
Nantucket and the Cape Cod — the brand transformed
the Apple watch from a mini-computer to a luxury item
for men and women. In 2015 the firm’s artistic director,
Pierre-Alexis Dumas, partnered with Jony Ive, then
Apple’s chief designer, to create an Hermès Apple
watch face with distinctive dials, typography and
numerals. He then added an option of leather or fabric
straps, in a single or Hermès’s trademark Double Tour
(twin loop). The hand-stitched bands neatly offset the
cool tech of the watch “and cost more than the watch”,
Dordet jokes.
Last year Hermès moved on from the Apple watch to
something bolder, launching a hyper-modern analogueH08 in satin-brushed
titanium with a
rubber strap, £4,620;
hermes.comThe Sunday Times Style • 31