SOPHISTICATED SPORTY WATCH YOU CAN DRESS UP OR DOWN
The H08 is ‘the Hermès take on contemporary masculinity’
At once serious and sensual, robust and delicate, matte and glossy, the Hermès H08 watch is inherently varied and multifaceted, just like the Hermès man himself. Contemporary yet timeless, the watch is firmly embedded in the men’s universe that has been steadily shaped and guided for over 30 years by the luxury brand’s artistic director of men’s universe Véronique Nichanian.
Due to the pandemic, the watch launch was postponed 12 months and only pushed through last April 7, the opening day of the Watches and Wonders online fair.
Laurent Dordet, chief executive officer of Hermès Watches, said in an interview with Prestige Online that the luxury brand “wanted to create a contemporary watch, strongly anchored in the Hermès all-terrain, ‘multivital’ masculine universe. It was a desire to express our values, to embody them. This timepiece embodies ‘the Hermès take on contemporary masculinity.’”
The watchmakers crafted a watch whose sporting-inspired design features a circular dial framed by a case with softened edges. The result: angles and curves merge into a seamless whole where black, gray and anthracite mesh with blue and orange.
In the same interview, Dordet said they “do not seek to replicate what already exists.” Their aim is to be daring and to follow their intuition “by creating objects whose purpose is not only to indicate the time but to build a relationship with time.”
Figure 8
The Hermès H08 watch hints at graphics, mathematics and metaphysics. Its distinctively original font of the numerals chimes with the object, including a 0 and an 8 whose forms evoke that of the case. The 0 numeral embodies emptiness, while the horizontal figure 8 symbolizes infinity.
“That’s where the idea of the [watch] name came from,” Dordet said.
Beating to the rhythm of the mechanical self-winding Manufacture Hermès H1837 movement, the Hermès H08 consists of three large, cushion-shaped models with a screw-down crown. The first features a graphene-filled composite case, topped by a satin-brushed and polished ceramic bezel.
Its black gold-coated dial is punctuated by a minutes track, luminescent Arabic numerals and black nickel-coated hands displaying the hours, minutes, central seconds and date at half past four. It is paired with a black rubber strap secured by a titanium butterfly clasp.
Two other variants—in matte black DLC-coated titanium and in satinbrushed titanium—frame a black nickel-coated dial with a blue or black webbing band, or a black or orange rubber strap. In addition to its toughness and comfort, the woven strap specially developed for the Hermès H08 watch epitomizes a style that is as sporty as it is sophisticated, entirely consistent with the world of Hermès menswear—a watch you can dress up or down.
The watch division makes no claims of perfecting or even creating sports watches. As the division’s creative director Philippe Delhotal told the New York Times last April, “the idea was to create a sports watch in spirit but not necessarily in performance.” INQ
Hermès is at Greenbelt 3, Makati City.