Giddy up for Hermès’ Arceau Mon Premier Galop watch

A craftsman applying a horse via silk threads to dial of Hermès Arceau Mon Premier Galop watch

A craftsperson works on the dial of the Hermès Arceau Mon Premier Galop watch, which will be presented at Watches and Wonders 2024 in April

(Image credit: Courtesy, Hermès. Copyright, copyright David Marchon)

Is that a tiny toy horse of whirling silks, leather and diamonds galloping towards your wrist? The Hermès Arceau Mon Premier Galop watch dial is alive with the chubby-toy like form of a tiny horse champing at the bit to break free into its first gallop.

Of course, there are many barely-there, minimalist watch designs to choose from if you're hankering after a timepiece that doesn't detract from the ‘quiet luxury’ of your beige cashmere sleeve. But what if you’re bored of that all-too-meek and irritatingly humble catchphrase and fancy something a little more, well, bonkers? Hermès fills the gap with a watch design that is a typically joyful frisson.

Hermes Mon Premier Galop horse motif is decorated with silk threads and ultra-fine leather cuts — Designer Tong Ren's horse motif is decorated with silk threads and ultra-fine leather cuts

Apart from the Hermès Arceau Mon Premier Galop watch’s obvious qualities – the modernist colour scheme in contrasting layered enamel, silk-thread wicker whirls and ultra thin-leather mosaic – there’s something funny and childlike about the horse’s impatience to hoof it.

The watch is among the collection of new Hermès timepieces due to be launched at Watches and Wonders 2024 (the watch world’s equivalent of Couture Week – see our Watches and Wonders behind-the-scenes foray ahead of the 2023 event, as well as the 2023 highlights), in Geneva in April, which also hosts public open days.

Hermès Arceau Mon Premier Galop dial is a miniscule version of a shawl

A fine shawl with toy horse motif — The Hermès Mon Premier Galop Shawl, £1,090, at Hermès

Hermès’ former artistic director Henri d'Origny was responsible for the atypical, curvy, 1978 Arceau case silhouette (without the roundness, it would have looked all-too classic), which, nearly 50 years later, has evolved into a proud horological benchmark for the house, and a canvas for miniscule versions of its scarf designs. Because, as Hermès scarf aficionados will know, this excited little equine character actually cantered over from Chinese designer Tong Ren’s wicker-weave-inspired illustration for the Hermès Mon Premier Galop shawl. Now's your chance to giddy up in an altogether more timely fashion.

Crafting blue threads onto Herm&egrave;s exceptional watch dial — Meticulously applying silk threads onto the watch dial

The Hermès Arceau Mon Premier Galop watch is offered in white gold and diamonds with leather marquetry and silk-thread dial, blue enamel base and hand-painted gold appliqués. It is powered by the Hermès H1912 automatic movement, with sapphire caseback and Swift zephyr-blue calfskin strap. Price on application.

Tickets for Watches and Wonders 2024 public days at Genève, Palexpo, 13-15 April, are on sale now.

watchesandwonders.com

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Caragh McKay is a contributing editor at Wallpaper* and was watches & jewellery director at the magazine between 2011 and 2019. Caragh’s current remit is cross-cultural and her recent stories include the curious tale of how Muhammad Ali met his poetic match in Robert Burns and how a Martin Scorsese Martin film revived a forgotten Osage art.