So say the Stones, 'Time is on our side'

Yes it is. So say also the bright minds at Hermès. Let me borrow a few minutes of your time.

We see watches elegantly suspended from an installation of birch branches inside Sala Bistro in Greenbelt, while a harpist plays a stringless harp (sleight of hand sans sound). A metaphor, perhaps, for how time can be mounted, put outside of oneself, and later returned to without skipping a beat. What, exactly, is Hermès’ philosophy of time, we ask Daniel Talens, managing director of La Monte Hermès Pacific.

Talens looks at me and asks with a laugh, “How many years do you have?”

He shares, “Time is a friend. Time is not against you. Time does not control you…” and echoing Jagger the mover, “Time is on your side.”

We are at the launch of the Time Suspended watches. Created by Hermès and legendary watchmaker Jean-Marc Wiederrecht, Time Suspended doesn’t just keep track of time, it provides the possibility of “stopping time.” No, no, it’s not like that iconic scene in an episode of The Twilight Zone, or the remote control in the lackluster Click. With a simple push of a button on the side of a Time Suspended watch, time will appear to stop, but rest easy since the timepiece continues to keep track of time internally. Another push of a button will reset the timepiece to the right time and date.

Essential this. Imagine you’re in Montreaux watching the reunion concert of Return to Forever. Dude, with Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, Lenny White and Al Di Meola playing the hymn of the seventh or eighth galaxies, you would want time to stop so that the quartet could keep playing seemingly forever. Or if you’re at The National Museum gazing at Juan Luna’s “Spoliarium.” Or if you’re dating the woman of your daydreams at TheBar@1951 Adriatico. Or if you’re home with your family and your sparkly-eyed daughter wants you to teach her how to draw spiders. You’d want to call for time out. Give her all the time in the world.

Two models are on view: Arceau Le Temps Suspendu and the Cape Cod Grandes Heures. These two are part of the Hermès timepiece family along with variants such as Dressage, Clipper, and the H-Our, among others. 

Talens, who has been a watch collector since he was 16 years old, goes on to cite the three pillars involved in making an Hermès watch: quality, craftsmanship and design. He says it’s about “developing the most outstanding object at the highest possible level of quality with an impeccable design.”

Earlier that day, Talens explained that creating a Birkin bag or an Hermès watch takes time. “If you put (time pressure) on the craftsman, he cannot perform. When you’re an artist, the last thing you want to hear is the deadline.”

We ask Talens with everything going digital — you could practically attach an “i-“ into any object these days (just like George Costanza’s “i-Toilet” in the Seinfeld reunion in Curb Your Enthusiasm) — why does the mechanical watch still retain its mystique, its desirability.

“The answer is very simple,” he quips. “If you want to know the time, you look at your mobile phone, your computer, or other endless devices. But then you have your social time, the ‘you’ time, your personal time, because in the society we live in, everything tends toward standardization — cars, houses, schools, clothes, shopping malls. The human being is totally against this. The individual expression is always very important. You want to be different.”

A person wants to communicate to others this individuality. And a watch, says Talens, is one of the tools for a person to do so. “The primary function of a watch to tell time, for me, is its third most important function. That’s why in the digital era, the business of mechanical watches is booming.”

Talens draws another parallelism: in the age of Facebook, people may have a thousand FB friends, but they don’t even say hello to people on the street or when they enter an the elevator. That’s why the man digs Hermès because the brand is always true to the strong values. Tradition being one of them.

Hermès employs around 6,000 craftsmen working with their hands to develop beautiful objects.

“What is amazing about Hermès is that we are not driven by the final consumer, we are driven by the creative part of the object.” Is it the journey being more preferred than the destination? Something like that. “That object can be a watch, a leather case, or a tie. It can appeal to many people. The Hermès man and woman vary. The common denominator is that the person is self-confident. You wear an Hermès watch because aesthetically, you love it; mechanically, you understand (its inner workings); and you love to be different.”

It’s an altogether different watch. Its DNA is special.

“A watch has to represent something to you,” Talens concludes. “You just don’t buy watches. You buy a watch for the meaning behind it — to celebrate achievement, love, or friendship. A watch is deeper than just (being a timekeeping machine).”

And Time Suspended is more just a time-suspending thingamajig. You’ll get that in due time.

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In the Philippines, Hermès items are exclusively available at the Hermès boutique in Greenbelt 4, Ayala Center, Makati.