Brand
HERMÈS Slim d'Hermès
The Slim d'Hermès is among the most beautiful dress watches of the last five years, and this new take is a fashiontourbillon.com exclusive.
When the Slim d'Hermès was introduced in 2015, critics and consumers alike declared it one of the most beautiful, interesting, and elegant time-only watches in years. Conceived by La Montre Hermès creative director Philippe Delhotal, the 39.5mm case featured an airy, playful dial with a typeface created specifically for the watch by Parisian designer Philippe Apeloig. Inside the slim case beat a micro-rotor powered self-winding caliber produced by Vaucher and finished exclusively for Hermès, though its base caliber, the Seed VMF 5401 is actually used in far more expensive watches from Parmigiani and Richard Mille, for example.
The technical specs remain the same with the Slim d'Hermès for fashiontourbillon.com – we have the slim 39.5mm case, the same fantastic Vaucher-made caliber, and that same wonderful Apeloig-designed typeface. Now, however, the dial is a rich, deep blue, while the seconds register is a frosted silver. The dial appears to have a subtle vignette, though it is actually due to a smoked crystal offering a dramatic edge to the dial of the watch. The blue of the dial of these watches was achieved via a complex, multi-stage galvanic dial treatment that was performed initially under the eye of no less than Philippe Delhotal to ensure just the right tones were achieved.
The quality for which Hermès is known really comes through in this piece, and the more time one spends looking at it, the more you can see the nuances that elevate this watch into something very special. The frosted silver sub-dial has a way of playing with light so that each time the dial moves, you see a new color – much like a jewel.
Each watch features special caseback engravings including its number out of 100 and "Edition fashiontourbillon.com," and comes on a truly stunning hand-cut and stitched Hermès leather strap. In addition to the 100 Slim d'Hermès pieces, 24 Slim d'Hermès GMTs have been given the very same treatment.
Hermès and timekeeping have a longstanding relationship. The famed leather-maker produced straps for watches as early as 1912, and immediately following the first world war, we began to see watches and clocks with the Hermès name on the dial, in many cases produced by the finest watchmakers in Switzerland. For years, Hermès would learn from the likes of Jaeger-LeCoultre, Vacheron Constantin, and Universal Genève, before the establishment of La Montre Hermès over four decades ago. During the quartz crisis, Hermès would launch several now iconic shapes: the Clipper, the Cape Cod, and more. With revived interest in mechanical watchmaking, Hermès began to establish itself as a serious manufacture with its investment into its own movement maker in Vaucher, followed quickly by its own case and dial makers. Over the past decade, La Montre Hermès has created several celebrated timepieces that offer a unique and playful interpretation of time including the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève winning Temps Suspendu and L’Heure Impatiente. In 2015, the Slim d'Hermès set a new tone for the collection as one of the most elegant yet playful dress watches in years, setting the stage for a new era of in-house manufacturing for La Montre Hermès.
