Specially decorated pocket watches, table clocks and intricate timepieces have been a specialty of the brand for a long time now.
This year, Hermès is introducing a collection of métiers d’art watches influenced by the Japanese Temari (meaning “hand ball”). These Temari were originally made from fabric left over from the making of kimonos and little by little the Temari became more sophisticated and eventually an art form in and of itself. Hermès has borrowed from the Temari designs, which have already inspired an iconic silk scarf, to create a collection of jewelry watches combining snow setting and hard stone marquetry. These watches use snow-set diamonds as well as marquetry with white mother-of-pearl, onyx, lapis lazuli or opal.
The resulting watches are master works of artisanal craftsmanship. The snow setting, which comes before the marquetry, requires an incredible amount of hand work, as each watch is set with at least 700 stones of varying sizes. The gem-setter has no specific plan for the watch, other than to cover the spaces between the stone, and it takes almost three weeks to complete the snow setting.
On the marquetry side, which is done after the snow-setter has done his work, the design is carefully planned, using 20 tiny pieces of different sizes of the material (milled from a block of stone or mother-of-pearl). Like a jigsaw puzzle, each of the pieces is individually and very carefully assembled onto the dial, as the fragments of material are especially fragile.
This model comes in a 34mm white gold case and is powered by a Manufacture Hermès H1912 movement.
The resulting Hermès Arceau Temari watches are unlike anything else on the market today.
