Hermès | New dial between creativity and technology

The watch brand’s well-known Cape Cod model appears with a dial featuring a distinctive aesthetic uniting and revealing two ordinarily separate worlds.

Following a meetings with the Swiss Centre for Electronics and Microtechnology (CSEM), a dial project based on a silicon wafer was born. This collaboration reveals the intimate and refined crépuscule (dusk) design by designer-graphic artist Thanh-Phong Lê.

Used in microelectronics for its semi-conductor properties, the silicon wafer was chosen here for its purely aesthetic qualities, representing a first. Depending on the amount of material deposited during production, its colour varies across an infinite palette of subtle and unique shades. This highly technological process is carried out by specialised engineers in the CSEM labs.

The dials of the Cape Cod crépuscule are created from a single 0.5mm thick plate, which is coated in an extremely precise manner with a tiny (72-nanometre) film of silicon nitride to obtain the desired intense blue colour.

Then comes the photolithography stage, during which the wafer is exposed to a blue light so as to print the pattern. The process involves several successive baths, before the gold-coating stage, followed by other baths to remove any superfluous material. Finally, the plate is precisely cut to the shape of the Cape Cod case.

The dial with its slender gilded hands reveals the bluish shades sprinkled with yellow gold achieved by this unique method combining creativity and nanotechnology. A navy blue calfskin single or double tour strap sets the final touch to the Cape Cod crépuscule watch.