Hermès Cut: A Cut Above the Rest

Presenting the Hermès Cut, Laurent Dordet, CEO of Hermès Horloger, expounds on why shapes matter for the luxury house. 

“Let’s propose something that’s not in line with the competition,” says Laurent Dordet, CEO of Hermès Horloger, with a knowing look. “But in line with who we are. And if there are customers interested by the Hermès identity, then they will come.” We’re inspecting the French house’s newest collection, Hermès Cut, on the first day of Watches & Wonders, and Dordet speaks with clear excitement for the watches that lie before me: the first sports timepiece made for women at Hermès that’s equipped with an in-house movement, a watch that’s round but not quite round – but more on that later – and presented with an array of colourful rubber-strap choices. 

“We made a lot of effort in the men’s sector with the latest complications and the introduction of the H08 line three years ago,” says Dordet. “Now, it’s time to talk to the number of women who are partial to mechanical watches and complications.”

Hermès already has an extensive collection of watches for women, seven in fact, with the most sought-after collections being the Arceau, Cape Cod and Heure H. But with the successful launch of the sporty and urban H08 watches, with its distinct cushion-style case and use of innovative materials, it became more certain than ever that Hermès could, and should, also develop a sporty timepiece for ladies too. We find out, soon enough, that creative director Philippe Delhotal did really begin to work on the house’s first sports watch for women three years ago.

The result is the Hermès Cut. Delhotal looked into the vocabulary of geometry that was dear to Hermès to imagine this new collection, which is based on simple shapes. And shapes, as Dordet tells me, has always been part of Hermès. 

“When Hermès entered into watches about 46 years ago, there were two directions that were very clear then, and are still very clear now,” says Dordet. “First of all, we needed to be as good as our best competitors in terms of technique and quality. We have a long-term family-owned business strategy, so even if this takes time, we’ll take the time. Second of all, for everything from the styles, the fantasies, the playfulness, the colours, shapes and so on, we have to be as different as possible from what the other pure-player watchmakers are doing. Otherwise, why are we here?”

From the outset, Hermès has been creating shapes of watches that were unusual to this industry. Watches such as the Cape Cod, the Arceau and the Heure H are all rooted in the Hermès universe and inspired by the codes of the Hermès house. “Some of them are super coded,” says Dordet. “The Heure H for example. The Cape Cod is inspired by the anchor-chain motif. Some of them, like the Arceau watch, are not inspired by a code but the equestrian history of the house, and so the asymmetrical lugs are an example of an equestrian detail.”

Designing a sports watch is a constrained exercise, because designers are often working with a round movement, which accounts for why so many watches in this popular segment are more or less round. “To make a shape that’s not been proposed before is a challenge,” says Dordet. “As you can see with the Hermès Cut, there’s no specific Hermès code like a logo or equestrian. There are a lot of details that are typical of Hermès but there’s no literal code.”

Dordet reminds me of Simple Shapes, an exhibition in France hosted by Hermès in 2015, which explored all the simple shapes in the world that were man-made and not made in nature. “Man has been cutting stones since prehistoric times,” he says. “We can see it in the Greek ancient Cycladic statues, to the more recent Brancusi statues in the 20th century. Every simple shape made by men is a tribute to the creative gesture.”

So that’s what the Hermès Cut is: a tribute to simple shapes. Simple, but not quite – the design is incredibly nuanced. Delhotal had started with something round as a design, but then he played around with it, slicing off the edge of the watches to give them their distinct, strong identity, as well as the name: Cut. The case is satin-brushed and polished to accentuate the cut, and the crown is positioned at half-past one so as not to damage the clean-cut bevels on the side of the case. 

The Hermès Cut is powered by the self-winding Manufacture Hermès H1912 movement, which is visible through the sapphire crystal caseback. Available in four versions in steel or a two-tone combination of steel and rose gold, and with the options of bezel-set diamonds or without, the watch comes with a seamless integrated metal bracelet with supple and rounded links. Additionally, rubber straps are available in a range of eight colours drawn from the Hermès palette – white, orange, gris perle, gris étain, glycine, vert cricket, bleu jean and capucine – all easily interchangeable via an ingenious system that requires no additional tools.

“It’s been a long process of taking something super simple and making it slightly different,” says Dordet. “But in the end, we’ve arrived at something totally unique.”