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Trend - Playing with Time

WORLDTEMPUS - 19 March 2011
Former Israeli minister Golda Meir once famously said "I must govern the clock, not be governed by it." Of course, time stops for no one - not even those who possess the most accurate timepieces or are able to govern their own clocks.
Having been really busy this spring with my other specialty (tennis, a game with no time limit and whose scoring system theoretically allows a match to go on forever), I really wish I could manage a way to freeze time. Yes, this very same story you are reading should have been posted two weeks ago; if only I had an Arceau Time Suspended watch by Hermes I could do all the writing while my colleagues are stuck in time!

Wouldn't it be nice to control time? Well, since we're not in an episode of Twilight Zone, at least we can play with it and have the illusion of controlling the inexorable march of time thanks to several timepieces issued at Baselworld.

Poetic complications
 
The idea of uniting information and entertainment in timepieces is not new. Since time started to be measured in a mechanical way, there have always been additional leisure complications to make a clock or a watch a bit more interesting - allowing the wearer to interact with the timepiece, from classical complexities like alarms, minute repeaters and grande sonneries to the naughty theatre of the erotic complications, and even those that tweak the symbolic meaning of time.
A few years ago, Franck Muller unveiled a series of philosophical complications related to the expression of time: Crazy Hours (the hour hand seems to jump randomly); Heure Mysterieuse (one push of a button caused time to stop, both hands uniting at 12 o'clock); and Take Your Time, probably the most horologically demanding of these fun time displays. An "irregular" retrograde hour display, it celebrates the notion that time flies when we're having fun and,goes more slowly when we're not. At the recent Baselworld fair, two of the most talked-about watches of the exhibition also created the illusion of governing time: the Hublot Key of Time and the Hermes Time Suspended.
Both watches follow in the footsteps of a few brands that are not necessarily known for big mechanical complications, thus far chiefly featuring specialties and poetic variations in order to attract more exposure. Van Cleef & Arpels, better known for its jewelry, won the 2010 Ladies Watch of the Year Award at the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Geneve with a watch developed by Jean-Marc Wiederrecht called Le Pont des Amoureux. Hermes, faithful to its quality of workmanship by the best craftsmen, decided to hire Wiederrecht to complete something quite different.
"The focus in 2011 is on the development of the 'Time to Dream' concept. We need to communicate a new territory around a very unique and unconventional technical innovation," said Luc Perramond, CEO of La Montre Hermes. "We must enchant the customers." By using mechanical devices in the service of poetry.

Getting out of time
Hermes came up with its first watch collection in 1928 and established a factory in Switzerland in 1978 to enhance production. To have legitimacy in watchmaking, a brand has to present original mechanical complications; Wiederrecht and his company, Agenhor, fit the bill as the perfect partner. After almost four years, a star was born: a timepiece that conceals time and erases its indication from the dial, freezing the hands while the mechanics continue to ceaselessly march forward.
The 140-component Agenhor module allows automatic alternation between suspended time and standard time to create the illusion. The modus operandi of the Arceau Time Suspended is actually quite simple; when the button at 9 o'clock is pressed, time stops. The hour and minute hands are switched to an awkward-looking stand-by mode so that the wearer does not get confused and the date hand "disappears." Pressing the button again, the time and date reappear thanks to a complex split-level mechanism with two synchronized column wheels and 360º retrograde hands.

 

Illusion of time
Another timepiece that allows you to disconnect from reality, or at least from conventional time, is Hublot's Key of Time. Developed by Mathias Buttet and his former BNB team working at their new department within Hublot, it's a specialty timepiece that gives you the illusion of controlling the pace of time: using a three-position crown, it is possible to choose whether the hands go faster or slower on the dial.
Issued in a limited edition of 50 pieces with a futuristic look completely different from the classically-minded Arceau Time Suspended, the Key of Time also boasts a flying tourbillon and embodies a certain relativity theory: sometimes time passes faster, at other times slower. There are certainly times we wish we could go through dire straits as quickly as possible, other times we would like to savor a moment in slow motion.
And right now I am actually savoring having found the time to finish this story. Enjoy!