Hermes Just Revealed The Perfect 'Zen' Watch
If the first mention of digital art these days brings to mind NFTs, hold that thought. Instead, Hermes has combined digital art with nanotechnology for a watch design that's surprisingly poetic.
Nanotechnology may not exactly be the sexiest thing to talk about. But trust the folks at Hermes to pique our interest in the topic.
You see, the Maison has dropped a preview of a new iteration of its Cape Cod watch featuring a dial design that marries high-tech kung fu from the field of nanotech with a peaceful and contemplative piece of graphic art to create what it dubs the Cape Cod Crepuscule.
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Crepuscule translates to "dusk" in French and is a nod to the original abstract piece by graphic artist Thanh-Phong Le that depicts the moment the sun's golden rays hit the blue waters at sunset.
The quartz-powered Cape Cod Crepuscule boasts a 29mm steel case on a navy blue calfskin strap that matches the blue-tinted silicon dial.
This poetic art work adorns the dial of Hermes' 31-year-old model which is known for its unique square-within-a-rectangle case design as much as for its cult fashion status thanks to that time in 1999 when then creative diector Martin Margiela designed a double-tour strap bracelet for the timepiece.
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Revealed earlier this week as a pre-cursor to Hermes' novelties at this year's edition of the annual watch fair Watches & Wonders that will take place in March, the timepiece will hit stores between June and July and priced at $7,270.
Ahead, we give you a 101 on how exactly the watchmaker has utilised nanotechnology to create this piece of horological beauty.
Silicon wafers which are commonly used as semi-conductors have been chosen for the first time as the material to be used on an Hermes watch dial thanks to the aesthetic quality they possess.
Hermes turned to the Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology (CSEM) to develop silicon wafers that can be used for this decorative purpose. By controlling the amount of material deposited during production, CSEM engineers could create different hues of wafers across an infinite palette of subtle and unique shades.
The silicon dial of the Cape Cod Crepuscule measures only 0.5 mm in thickness and have been coated in an extremely precise 72-nanometre film of silicon nitride to achieve an intense blue hue.
The last stage of the dial production is called the photolithography stage, during which the silicon wafer is exposed to a blue light so as to print the motif created by Thanh-Phong Le. This is then followed by a gold-coating stage before the plate is finally cut in the shape of the Cape Cod case.