Hermès Drops its First Dedicated Men's Watch Collection
The design balances Hermès’ style with everyday robustness.
Hermès has dropped the brand’s first dedicated men’s collection, H08, and HYPEBEAST got to spend a few days putting it through its paces earlier this month.
H08 is an original cushion-shaped watch that plays with contrasting finishes and subtle gradiations of black and grey tones while certain models make a play of brightly colored highlights through fabric and rubber straps. The collection debuts with five distinct 39mm references with four in titanium (two given black DLC coatings) and one piece featuring a ‘graphene-filled’ composite case.
Despite measuring just 39mm across, the H08 case neatly straddles the admittedly fine line between Hermès’ own elegant house style and that of a masculine, robust watch that, if not exactly a sports watch, certainly gives the impression of being perfectly suited to everyday wear. That’s helped by the use of a Hermès’ H1837 automatic movement, developed by partner Vaucher Fleurier, and a screw-down crown offering 100m water resistance.
H08’s dial gives an indication of how much attention-to-detail has been lavished on the watch’s design with its Arabic numeral hour markers using a typeface developed specifically for the watch and its zero and eight characters taking on the silhouette of the case. The applied numerals sit on a frosted textured surface, one elevation on a multi-layered dial.
Hermès has clearly designed the H08 with one eye on the market demand for base metal sports watches, but the form of the case doesn’t feel lacking when worn on either the fabric or rubber straps, if anything it feels better suited to them.
The H08 is available now, via Hermès, with prices starting at £4,400 GBP ($6,137 USD).
In other watch news, Patek Philippe has revealed the final 5711/1A Nautilus.
