Pause and Reflect

Hermès's Le Temps Suspendu watches have the unique ability to tell time, suspend it, and restart it at the push of a button. We track how the brand set about creating this personalised expression of time.

- Digvijay

In an industry where technical innovation overshadows most else, there are few watch brands that have a philosophical approach to timekeeping. However, Montres Hermès is a watchmaker that has been able to straddle both these ideas. With a watchmaking history of almost a century, Hermès timepieces don't just tell time, they try to explore facets that are beyond usual timekeeping. It's poetic even. In 2014, the brand introduced Dressage L'heure Masquée, a watch that features a hidden hour hand that only appears when a button set into the crown is pressed, creating a playful interaction with time. This was followed by Slim d'Hermès L'heure Impatiente in 2017, which allowed the wearer to set an hour countdown on a retrograde hand on a subdial, the completion of which is marked by a crisp chime.

But before these complications, in 2011, the brand introduced at Baselworld the Arceau Le Temps Suspendu (time suspended), featuring a world-first novel complication that won it the Best Men's Watch award at the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève the same year. The beauty of the complication lay in the fact that the wearer could, at the push of a button, 'suspend time' or stop it, and upon another push, restart it without any loss in timekeeping accuracy.

“Rather than measuring, ordering, and seeking to control it, Hermès dare[d] to explore another time, designed to arouse emotions, open up parentheses, and create spaces for fantasy and recreation,” says Philippe Delhotal, Creative Director, Hermès Horloger. “This suspended parenthesis enables each person to consider their relationship with time as they wish, and to gift, themselves or to others, a qualitative time.”