Hermès loves to invent new ways of displaying time. The Dressage L'Heure Masquée is the latest creation, presented at Baselworld 2014. Following the playful Grandes Heures in the Cape Code line and the Suspended Time in the Arceau, the Heure Masquée, now an integral part of the Dressage collection, displays time on demand only. The hour hand remains hidden behind the minute hand and appears only when a button is pushed. A second time zone also pops out at 6 o’clock. Thus, the feeling of time changes as minutes become the only indication on the dial. This “temps de l’imaginaire” (“imaginary time”), as the brand describes it, involves a lot of research and development at Vaucher Manufacture. 

There is no equivalent to this function elsewhere on the market or in the history of watchmaking, so engineers started to work from a completely blank page. The Heure Masquée thus extends this series of timekeepers that play with time in a clever way. The design and refinement of the dial and the case are really impeccable, not to mention the exclusivity of the module offering time on demand only.