Say hello to the Cut, Hermès’ sleek, sporty new watch

When the French luxury powerhouse Hermès started developing a new watch collection for women more than three years ago, Philippe Delhotal, the creative director of Hermès Horloger, says the ambition was “to create a contemporary model with a simple, timeless shape that combines the house’s distinctive style with its watchmaking expertise”. The Hermès Cut is a playful take on the classic round watch, fashioned into something more avant garde with an architectural feel and details that challenge design conventions.
Making something look simple is a complicated business. For what the company’s CEO, Laurent Dordet, describes as Hermès Horloger’s biggest launch in a decade, the team were tasked to come up with a timepiece broadly aimed at women but with a “universal style” and an in-house mechanical movement. And it was to be introduced to the sports-watch sector, already a crowded market.
So where to start? “When I was thinking about the new design,” Delhotal recalls, “I knew that I didn’t want anything figurative like [the brand’s other watch lines] Heure H or Cape Cod.” Unlike those, the new watch has no direct references to the house’s codes. “I imagined a model that would be ergonomic and easy to wear,” he adds. But it needed to have a quietly powerful style. For a watch called Cut, you could be forgiven for thinking it would be all aggressive angles and asymmetry. But while it is about geometry — “the vocabulary of shape”, as Hermès calls it — the design is subtle. It’s softly rounded but with crisply drawn lines.
Delhotal proposed four bevels cut into the case at 3, 6, 9 and 12 o’clock, creating an interesting multifaceted silhouette, and decided to position the crown between 1 and 2 o’clock, “to preserve the nice profile and sculpted edges”. He says that it also makes you look at the watch from different angles.
Women’s watches have always been a major part of the Hermès collections, ever since La Montre Hermès was founded in Switzerland in 1978. Significantly, the Cut is the first to be developed with women in mind that is powered by a Manufacture Hermès movement — the self-winding H1912 calibre that can be seen through the sapphire crystal caseback — an acknowledgment that everyone can appreciate refined engineering that doesn’t rely on a battery on their wrist. Since its April debut, though, Delhotal points out, the unisex model has been as popular with men as with women.
The Cut is definitely a watch that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Its versatility comes into play with its functionality. Hermès is known for its colours and, as well as a metal link bracelet, there are eight rubber straps in modern shades to choose from, including the distinctive house orange and my favourite, “bleu jean”. The straps can be changed easily, just snapping in place, while the buckle is also interchangeable so you don’t have to buy one with each strap. Swapping the colour changes the character of the watch. In a bold move for a company that’s famed for its leather (Hermès was originally a harness-maker in 19th-century Paris), there are no leather straps for this timelessly chic sports watch — yet.
Then there’s the typography for which Hermès watches are known: this collection has been given its own elegant embossed font. So far the Cut is available in brushed and polished stainless steel or two-tone 18-carat rose gold and steel, with or without 56 bezel-set diamonds and in a 36mm case size. Philippe Delhotal says that this is just the start: “Our aim is to establish this new line and make it evolve with several animations, materials and most certainly complications.” Watch this space. hermes.com