Can you tell us about the development of the new
Hermès Carré H?
The Hermes Heure H with
black lacquer dial.
About fifteen years ago, Hermès creative director Pierre-
Alexis Dumas and Marc Berthier, who is a designer but
not a watch designer, wanted to create a watch. In 2010
we debuted the result, the first Carré H, which was a
limited edition in titanium. At that time it did not include
our own movement but instead used a movement by
Girard-Perregaux.
Two years ago we thought we needed a very identifiable
new watch, and because so many people love that edition
we decided to contact Marc again to develop a new version
of that watch to place into our collection.
This time we work with Vaucher using all of our own
components, and we are quite happy with the results. For
Marc Berthier, shape has always been a game, and here it’s
a round shape included in square. Square is an emblematic
shape for Hermès, and we are not referencing any trend.
Given its early adoption of the double strap, is
Montre Hermès a trendsetter?
It would be a bit arrogant to say that we are a trendsetter,
but I can say we do try to follow our own path. We have
our own vision of style and elegance. We certainly don’t
want to follow general trends. We are now a genuine Swiss
watchmaker, more so than many brands, and we employ
300 people in Switzerland alone. We are a French creator,
and our creativity is a combination of many métiers (arts
and crafts expertise). We are happy if we present our own
trends and our customers follow that. We don’t care if
other brands follow us or not.
We started our watches in Switzerland forty years ago,
and at that time we subcontracted within Switzerland. We
started back then with relatively simple watches, steel with
quartz movements. Now that we have been an integrated
manufacturer for the past ten years, we have kept those
simple watches but have extended all of our ranges toward
automatic mechanical and complicated watches for men, as
well as jewelry and precious stone watches, with mechani-
cal movements too, for women. We focus on only the high-
est quality for all of these.
The Hermès Arceau
Lift Millefiori
The Cape Cod GM
Milanais double tour
The 41mm Hermès Arceau
Chronographe Barenia, with
titanium case.
54 | INTERNATIONAL WATCH | FALL 2018