At the opening of Baselworld 2011, Luc Perramond, Managing Director of La Montre Hermès, presented the new timepiece from the Maison du Faubourg Saint Honoré: Arceau Le Temps suspendu.
Following on from the Cape Cod Grandes Heures and its made-to-measure timepiece launched in 2008, Hermès has created a brand-new complication for those who tame time to make it their own. In Greek mythology, Hermes is the grandson of Cronos, the God of time. The Arceau watch, conceived in 1978 by Henri d’Origny, now features a new module developed in collaboration with Geneva-based Agenhor and its founder Jean-Marc Wiederrecht, a leading specialist in retrograde time indications. This unconventional complication reflects Hermès’ philosophy of time: a time of the imaginary, playful and singular.
With a simple press of the push-button at 9 o’clock, the hour and minute hands come to rest around noon, while the date hand is completely retracted. Time stands still. Or rather its display. For the mechanism continues to regularly track civil time, like an orchestra playing backstage, in the silence of the stage. Two minutes, three hours, five days or a few weeks later, as you wish, a single press of the push-button repositions the three hands in their rightful place: suspended time resumes its course. The result is a triple retrograde system, two of which are 360° (for the hour and minute hands); this world first is protected by two patents.
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