Over the past quarter-century the Hermès Cape Cod collection has experienced the arrival of a number of unique models and variations. Come with us on a journey to see and understand them before joyously wanting to shout, “Happy 25th birthday, Cape Cod!”
During a recent trip to Paris, I stopped by Hermès’ Faubourg Saint-Honoré boutique to look at the Crafting Time exhibition. A highlight was the intriguing Hermès Arceau Pocket Ailes et Ecailles, whose dial is uniquely embellished with scarab beetle elytra fragments in a beautiful shimmering mosaic.
Hermès has set the bar extremely high with the exquisite artistry in the enamel work of Arceau Tigre Email Ombrant, whose name refers to a new enamel-and-engraving approach inspired by an old lithographic technique used in the Limoges region of France.
This week, for Photo Caption Competition No. 16, we have what looks like everything needed for a game of polo except the horse. What fun, funny, or sarcastic caption would you give this photo? Let us know in the comments!
La Montre Hermès now creates top-of-the-line, aesthetically coherent, and mechanically interesting watches. And this statement is true in two watch categories: ultra-high-end, complicated haute horlogerie and daily wearer. At Baselworld 2016, Hermès returns to the beautiful Slim d’Hermès. And for me, the biggest launch among these is indubitably the exquisite Slim d’Hermès Email Grand Feu.
If you’ve ever been to Mexico, you know that vivid colors are the order of the day, particularly when it comes to local art forms. La Montre Hermès envisioned the dial of the svelte Slim d’Hermès Mille Fleurs du Mexique wristwatch as a painting framed by a circle of white gold instead of a square wooden frame. The Mexican tapestry motif taken from an original Hermès scarf is painstakingly applied by hand to create a miniature painting on a fragile mother-of-pearl dial.
The La Montre Hermès’ factory has something that no other watch brand can boast: its own in-house strap production. The leather strap workshop was added to the purpose-built factory resembling the headquarters in Paris in October 2009. And though it is located in a “factory,” the strap-making process can hardly be called industrial; I would describe this craft needing a great deal of artistic grace as artisanal.
Welcome to the 2015 edition of Quill & Pad’s early Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG) predictions in which we pick our favorites and explain why. The six pre-selected finalists in the Calendar category are: Blancpain’s Villeret Quantième Complet, the Claude Meylan Full Calendar, Hermès’ soon-to-be-iconic Slim d’Hermès QP, Hublot’s Classic Fusion Aeromoon, the Tiffany & Co CT60 Annual Calendar, and Ulysse Nardin’s FreakLab.
La Montre Hermès announced its brand-new core collection called Slim d’Hermès at Baselworld 2015, which was an instant hit with critics and collectors alike. At the very same time this creative company co-announced a limited edition of 12 pieces decorated using a special artistic technique found in Japan. Called Koma Kurabe, the edition honors Kamo Kurabe Uma, a famous Japanese horse race. A talented Japanese artisan graces the elegant new timepieces with porcelain dials that reproduce scenes of the horse race that still takes place once a year in the spring when the picturesque cherry blossoms are in full bloom.
Yup, I would wear a women’s watch. The Arceau Temari is Hermès’ incredible take on embroidered Japanese temari balls combined with hard stone marquetry and diamond snow setting. The result, clearly, is a mesmerizing visual feast!