The Galop d'Hermès Watch
Press Release – SIHH 2019
The Galop d'Hermès Watch
Flowing and luminous, it plays with time. Dynamic and companionable, it takes pleasure in the passing hours. Mischievous and bold, it flaunts a crown at 6 o’clock. At 8, it recalls the entire history of Hermès, a harness and saddlemaker from the start. It is a transformed stirrup. A dreamlike arch. A futuristic space vessel. All three at once? It is attuned to its time, it tells its own story. Immediate, sensitive, self-evident tempo.
Galop d’Hermès was born of Ini Archibong’s detailed observations of bits, stirrups and harnesses in the Conservatoire des créations Hermès. The designer drew inspiration from every object and component of the harness collections. Hybridisation. He grasped their ingenuity, their technicality, their perfect balance, their avant-garde nature – and thus their beauty. A mission that lost nothing of the movement that shifts lines, or the function that embodies and gives life – with complete elegance.
Yesterday hands down to tomorrow its virtues and intuitions of the future. Aerodynamic curves, functional purity, kinetic flow... Galop d’Hermès also stems from work on light. Reflection(s). Day and night defined the shape of this object. Openness. The corners are blurred, the ergonomics are perfect, nothing jars the eye. Light is reflected in the curves, warming the metal and suffusing the shapes with vibrancy. Through the domed sapphire crystal, it exalts the gentleness of the dial. Organic simplicity. A sudden vision of a pebble swept along by a river, the river of time...
Pebble, galet, gallop, galop. An onward rush through the golden flow of time.
The case? A vessel hurtling through the air, shooting through the space-time continuum. Back to the future.
For one brief moment, the eye lingers on the hand pointing to the 8. In a singular transformation, the symbol of infinity becomes an inverted stirrup. Mise en abyme. The movement resumes. Acceleration.
Ini Archibong has designed a progressive typeface, the size of the numerals gradually unfurling, smaller and leaner at the front so as to create a sense of perspective. Aboard, they focus on the quality of movement. In a final mischievous touch, the 6 o’clock crown creates a symmetrical effect.
Its name? A witty play on masculine and feminine. Observe its moderation and its speed, at one and the same time. Serene strength, refined execution. The art of the gallop.