The French luxury brand will soon present its full-calendar Hermes Arceau Grande Lune with a simple, but nicely executed moon-phase complication.
What I really like about Hermes is that they do not try to save a euro or two on polishing the design of their goods. Whether it comes to leather bags or belts, necklaces or cufflinks, sneakers or, yes, watches, the extremely expensive items also demonstrate extremely good taste. I don’t know how they manage to do that, but you can almost always distinguish a Hermes good from the rest of the crowd.
Even when they do a “just another” version of a classic Full Calendar, they do something original and, well, highly attractive.
As you can see in the photos, the new Hermes Arceau Grande Lune features a standard dial layout with the large moon phase display combined with a date indicator and located at 6 o’clock. Right below the corporate logo at 12 o’clock, there are a usual “day of the week” and “month” indicators.
The whole setup is displayed on a black or an Opaline silver dial with stamped herringbone motif and rhodium-plated hour-markers.
The Arceau Grande Lune could look boring, but, thanks to a finely polished 43 mm case with signature lugs, it is, in fact, desirable and pleasant to look at. There is something that says that this is not yet another affordable “classic Swiss watch,” that there is something more to it.
The only problem of this timekeeper is that it is powered by a standard ETA automatic movement that’s been equipped with a Dubois-Depraz 9313 add-on module that allowed to extend the base three-hander’s functionality with a large moon complication and a calendar. Although the use of this combination somewhat diminishes its value as a collectible item, the uniqueness of the caliber should probably not be the first thing that comes to mind when making a list of priorities before buying a watch from a fashion brand.
Well, I hope that they will soon make a decisive step and acquire some small manufacture facility to build their own calibers. That would be the right thing to do not only for increasing the brand’s perceived value but would also make it less dependent on third party manufacturers in a situation when ETA starts to withdraw from the market leaving smaller brands face-to-face with manufacturers like Sellita.
See also: Hermes Cape Cod Tonneau Bleu de Malte
Photos: Hermes
Hermes Arceau Grande Lune specification
Price: $6000 (MSRP)
Movement: Automatic, base ETA caliber with Dubois-Depraz 9313 “large moon-phase” add-on module, Swiss Made
Movement decoration: Circular-grained and snailed bridges, the winding rotor is decorated with Cotes de Geneva motif
Functions: Hours, minutes, seconds, date, day of the week, month, moon phase
Case: Stainless steel
Shape: Round
Size: 43.00 mm
Dial: Black or Opaline silver with stamped herringbone motif and rhodium-plated hour-markers
Numerals: Arabic
Hands: Steel
Water resistance: 30 meters
Strap: Hermes leather (matt Havana alligator or matt graphite-black alligator) and a stainless steel deployant clasp
Crystal: Sapphire, antireflective
Back: Sapphire