Introducing: A 12-Set Limited Edition Of Three Hermès Arceau L’Heure De La Lune Watches In Remarkable Colors
There is no time to waste. The watch department at Hermès has been very busy — busy enough to release no fewer than six new watches ahead of next month’s Watches and Wonders. The novelties include a 12-set limited edition of three Hermès Arceau L’Heure de la Lune watches in surprising colors plus two new versions of the Arceau Le Temps Voyageur watches. Another new model is the artistic Slim D’Hermès Cheval Brossé, a limited edition of just 28 paintings — sorry, watches.
The Arceau L’Heure de la Lune has existed since 2019 but still looks fresh and original. Even so, Hermès felt inspired and created three new versions of the poetically complicated travel watch. The three variations on the L’Heure de la Lune theme feature two-tone looks, with cases and lugs made from different materials and hour markers matching the dials. In the center of each watch is an extraterrestrial stone. The white gold and blue titanium version has a “heart” of lunar rock, while the rose gold and titanium version features a dial made of a fragment of Vesta, one of the largest known asteroids. The third watch, in white and rose gold, is adorned with a fragment of the Erg Chech 002 meteorite, a magmatic space rock that may well be the oldest of its kind on Earth.
A 12-set limited edition of three Hermès Arceau L’Heure de la Lune watches
Did you already pick your favorite? Sorry, but I have to disappoint you. Hermès doesn’t sell the watches individually but only as a set of three. Here comes the next disappointing piece of information. Each of the 12 sets has a staggering price of €251,000. I could now phrase a couple of sentences in which I wonder who will be buying these sets, but I’m sure the brand did its due diligence, so forget about that. But I will say that although the Arceau L’Heure de la Lune, with its original moonphase complication featuring floating dials powered by the in-house caliber H1837, is a fine piece of high horology, releasing these watches as a set of three sells that short. The set has turned it into a fashion accessory.
I’m not sure if the sets’ buyers are interested in the fact that the moving counters displaying the time and date turn around the dial over 59 days, gradually revealing the moon discs. The same goes for the technical fact that this mechanical ballet is powered by an exclusive 117-component Hermès module featuring a simultaneous display of the lunar phases for the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. They might want to know that a Pegasus drawn from Dimitri Rybaltchenko’s Full Moon motif adorns one of the moons on each model. Why this specific fact? Because it’s a nod to people fully immersed in the Hermès universe.
Each of these timepieces, with its 43mm case designed by Henri d’Origny in 1978, comes with a matte alligator leather strap. You get abyss blue for the white gold and blue titanium version (which would look awesome with denim) and a graphite strap for the other two.
The Arceau Le Temps Voyageur appears in white and rose gold
Three years ago, the Hermès Arceau Le Temps Voyageur debuted. With its circular disc displaying 24 time zones plus a home-time indicator at 12 and a mobile sub-dial showing the local time, the design was strong and original. Before addressing the frivolous side of the watch, let’s mention the movement inside. The travel functions are displayed by a 122-component module integrated into the in-house Hermès H1837 automatic movement.
The Arceau Le Temps Voyageur is a travel watch but not as you know it. Look at the city ring, and you’ll notice that the Paris time zone is indicated as “24 FBG.” Indeed, the address of the store at 24 Rue Faubourg Saint Honoré. The home-time indicator sits at 12 o’clock. But it’s the time floating around Jérôme Colliard’s “Planisphere d’un monde équestre” (planisphere of an equestrian world), that draws and deserves the most attention. The two new versions — one in a 41mm white gold case and the other in a 38mm rose gold case — show an evolution of the dial.
The 41mm watch features a gray-blue lacquered dial, enhanced by a city disc in navy blue and blue-varnished skeletonized hands. Buyers will receive this €37,000 watch on an abyss-blue alligator strap. The 38mm version costs the same price as the larger model. It is smaller, yes, but it shines with 78 diamonds and features the world map on a natural mother-of-pearl dial. Delicate rose gold edging highlights the contours of the opaline champagne-toned continents, cities, and home-time indicator. The elegant rose gold leaf-shaped hands match the dial, and so does the pearl-gray alligator strap.
My kingdom for a horse watch!
Less complicated but equally equestrian as the Arceau Le Temps Voyageur is the Slim D’Hermès Cheval Brossé. The watch comes in a 39mm white gold case in which an ultra-thin in-house Hermès H1950 automatic movement beats. But this two-hand watch is not about that. Rather, it’s about the stylized reinterpretation of a horse by designer Dimitri Rybaltchenko. The depiction of the horse echoes Hermès’s 2025 theme, “Drawn to Craft.” Enameling and pad printing are used to create the colorful horse’s profile. The watch, a limited edition of 24 pieces, comes on an abyss-blue alligator strap and costs €48,800. It’s a dress watch for those born to dare — where did I read that before…? Anyway, do you dare?
